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Codex W. The Washington MS. 



The Canon, Text 



AND 



Manuscripts 



OF THE 



New Testament 



Illustrated with Tables, Facsimile Plates 
and Survey of the Earliest MSS. 



BY 

CHARLES FREMONT SITTERLY, Ph.D., S.T.D. 

Professor of Biblical Literature and the Exegesis of the English Bible 
in Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, New Jersey 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



<& 



7 r J 



Praxis in Manuscripts of the Greek Testament 
Copyright, 1898, by 
Charles F. Sitterly 



Copyright, 19 14, by 
Charles F. Sitterly 



* ' 



DEC 22 1914 

§>CI.A388912 



<p 



TO 

THE MASTER 

Rev. HENRY ANSON BUTTZ, D.D., LL.D. 

AfiPEAN EAABETE 

AftPEAN AOTE 



'Epevvdre rag ypacpdc;, . . . K,ai enelvai eloiv at \iaprvpovaai 
rrepl kfiov. 

—John v, 39. 

<t>£pe nal rd l3i(3Xia, \i6Xiora 6e rdc [xefifipdvag. 

—2 Tim. iv, 13. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

List of Plates 9 

Preface H 



PART I 

The Canon of the New Testament 

Bibliography 14 

Introduction 15 

CHAPTER I 
The Canon of the English New Testament 19 

CHAPTER II 
The Canon of the Latin New Testament 21 

CHAPTER III 
The Canon of the Greek New Testament 23 



PART II 
The Text of the New Testament 

Bibliography 34 

Introduction -. 35 

CHAPTER I 

The Sources of Evidence for the Text of the New Testament 37 

CHAPTER II 

The Necessity of Sifting and Criticizing the Evidence 43 

CHAPTER III 
The Methods of Critical Procedure 48 

CHAPTER IV 
The History and Results of the Process 53 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

PART III PAGE 

The Manuscripts of the Greek New Testament 

Bibliography 60 

CHAPTER I 

The Materials on which the Manuscripts were Written. ... 61 

Section I. Papyrus 61 

Section II. Parchment 64 

Section III. Paper 67 

CHAPTER II 

The Instruments with which the Manuscripts were Written . 70 

Section I. Pens 70 

Section II. Inks 70 

Section III. Other Instruments 71 

CHAPTER III 

The Forms in which the Manuscripts are Preserved 73 

Section I. The Roll 73 

Section II. The Codex 74 

Section III. Palimpsests 75 

CHAPTER IV 

The Methods of Marking and Measuring the Manuscripts. . 76 

Section I. Punctuation 76 

Section II. Accents and Breathings 77 

Section III. Abbreviations and Contractions 78 

Section IV. Stichometry 79 

CHAPTER V 

The Origin and Forms of the Greek Alphabet 81 

Section I. Origin 81 

Section II. Capitals 82 

Section III. Uncials 84 

Section IV. Minuscules 86 

Table of Greek Alphabets 88 

Notes on the Table of Greek Alphabets 89 

Additional Plates 91 

Notes on the Plates 121 

Survey of Codices Facing 126 



LIST OF PLATES 



PAGE 
Plate I. Facsimile from the Washington Manuscript . . Frontispiece 
II. " " Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 31 

III. Portrait of St. Luke, from Drew MS. IX 57 

IV. Facsimile from Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 93 



Codex Sinaiticus 95 

" Vaticanus 97 

" Alexandrinus 99 

" Ephraemi 101 



" Bezse 

Drew Minuscule 



V. 
VI. 
VII. 
VIII. 
IX. 
X. 
XL 
XII. 
XIII. 
XIV. 
XV. 
XVI. 
XVII. 
Table of Greek Alphabets . 
Survey of Chief Codices of the Greek Testament for the First Ten 

Centuries Facing 126 



I. 

II. 
III. 
IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

IX. 



103 
105 
107 
109 
111 
113 
115 
117 
119 
88 



PREFACE 



The science of literary criticism attains its climax in the 
latest text of the Greek New Testament. In this field specu- 
lation is now reduced well-nigh to the vanishing point. 

It is the design of these lectures, which are the irreducible 
residuum of courses delivered in the Seminary for several 
years, to traverse rapidly across the centuries the course of 
the canon of the New Testament. 

The labored apologetic of a former day as to either the 
exclusiveness or inclusiveness of the canon itself is relatively 
of lesser importance, hence the brevity of Part One. 

As a fourth edition of the author's Praxis in Manuscripts 
of the Greek New Testament is called for, the same has been 
incorporated, with but slight change since the last revision, as 
Part Three of the present work. 

It is no doubt true that interest in such studies is at the 
present time somewhat declining, even in our schools of 
theology, but it is equally clear that the means and method 
of such discipline must be kept available against the day of 
inevitable revival, for no biblical theology nor biblical preach- 
ing can long survive that does not rest securely on first-hand 
knowledge of what is written. The wealth of documentary 
evidence, which the last half century has brought, to the 
New Testament itself and to the period when it was being 
written and settled into a canon, is added reason why a group 
of students should always be in training, to rightly appre- 
ciate and appropriate such treasures. The recent discovery 

in Egypt and purchase by Mr. Charles L. Freer, of Detroit, 

11 



12 PREFACE 

of one of the foremost uncial MSS. yet found, and now on 
deposit in the National Capital and known as the Washing- 
ton MS. of the Gospels, is but an earnest, we trust, of like 
valuable finds yet in store. 

Charles Fremont Sitterly. 
Drew Theological Seminary, Easter, 1914. 



PART 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Traced from the latest Version of 
the English Bible through the Latin 
and Greek to the original writers 



13 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Gregory, C. R., The Canon and Text of the New Testament. Edin- 
burgh, 1908. 
Harnack, Adolph, Chronologie der Altchristlischen Literatur. Leipzig, 

1897. 
Leitpoldt, J., Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. Leipzig, 

1907-08. 
Lightfoot, J. B., Essays on Supernatural Religion. London, 1889. 
Salmon, George, Historical Introduction to the New Testament. Eighth 

edition. London, 1897. 
Sanday, William, Inspiration, Bampton Lectures. London, 1893. 
Souter, Alexander, The Text and Canon of the New Testament. New 

York, 1913. 
Westcott, B. F., A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the 

New Testament. Seventh edition. London, 1896. 
Zahn, Theo., Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. Leipzig, 

1888-92. 
Zahn, Theo., Grundriss der Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. 

Leipzig, 1904. 



14 



INTRODUCTION 



The New Testament, as we now have it, and as it has 
existed from the beginning of its separate and corporate life, 
comprises, doubtless, the best of early Christian literature. 
Although there is many an Apocalypse, Epistle, Book of 
Apostolic Acts, and even Gospel (see list below), belonging to 
the early Christian centuries which is profitable for com- 
parative study, yet it is safe to predict that none of these 
will ever rank with those which we do receive and account as 
canonical. 

Partial List of New Testament Literature Outside 
the Canon 

1. The Gospel according to the Hebrews. 

2. The Gospel of the Ebionites, or of the Twelve. 

3. The Gospel according to the Egyptians. 

4. The Gospel according to Peter. 

5. The Acts of James. 

6. The Acts of Paul and Thecla. 

7. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. 

8. The Epistle of Paul to the Alexandrines. 

9. The Epistle of Barnabas. 

10. The Letter of Clement. 

11. The Shepherd of Hermas. 

12. The Abgarus Letters. 

13. The Apocalypse of Peter. 

14. The Prophecy of Hystaspes. 

Of this list, which might be more than duplicated in the 

single field of Apocryphal Lives of Christ, only 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 

and 13 ever approximated even local or temporary canonicity. 

15 



16 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

It is to be observed that, taken as a whole, the New Testament 
Apocrypha does not rise, either in doctrinal or literary value, 
to the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. 

"The first work of biblical criticism is to investigate the 
canon of the Bible, and to determine, so far as possible, 
the entire extent and the exact limit of Holy Scripture." 1 

The New Testament canon neither is nor ever has been so 
vital a problem in biblical literature as the canon of the Old 
Testament. Doubtless, not the least of the reasons for this 
is the fact that the entire group of New Testament writings 
sprang into existence within the century and almost within 
the lifetime of "those who were from the beginning eyewit- 
nesses and ministers of the word." It is, however, a pleasing 
thing and profitable to trace back the finished product as far 
as possible to its original sources. According to the articles 
of the faith of Christendom, "all the books of the New Testa- 
ment as they are commonly received we do receive and ac- 
count canonical." Our first inquiry, then, in taking up the 
study of the New Testament is as to why the twenty-seven 
books, comprising the second part of the Bible, are commonly 
received and accounted canonical. The word "canon" in 
Greek, which is one of the most interesting terms in either 
Greek, Latin, or English, will here be used in a sense which 
is almost last and least in significance, namely, to denote the 
list or catalogue of New Testament books. 

Bishop Westcott rightly remarks that the sixteenth century 
was the first occasion on which the general subject of the 
canon was debated as a question of doctrine in the Catholic 
Church. For consideration of the three views which found 
dogmatic expression from that time, namely, that of the 
Romanists, the Lutherans, and the Calvinists, and "the 
truth which each embodies and exaggerates," the master 

1 C. S. Briggs, The Study of Holy Scripture, p. 116. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 17 

work of Westcott must be read. 1 Doubtless, the days of 
active controversy are now past, and the questions of how, 
where, and when this classic library of Christian writings 
came into being can be clearly traversed with fewer words 
than ever before. Like many of its constituent books, the 
library itself is found to be the result of a long process of 
growth, but the outstanding facts are easily discerned. 

1 B. F. Westcott, On the Canon of the New Testament, p. 466. 



CHAPTER I 
The Canon of the English New Testament 

Taking up the New Testament as it is handed down to us in 
the most recent vernacular version, we find that despite all of 
the advances made in other respects, at least in the matter 
of the scope of the canon there has been no disposition either 
to restrict or extend the list of New Testament books as 
contained in what has been known for the past three cen- 
turies as the Authorized Version of the English Bible. Turn- 
ing to the Rheims New Testament, which is the well-known 
English rendering authorized by the Roman Catholic Church, 
and which precedes that of 1611 by thirty years, we find 
precisely the same order and number of books. The same is 
true of the Bishops' Bible, published in 1568, and which was 
the model of the Authorized Version; of the Great Bible of 
1539, which was the model of the Bishops' and of Tyndale's 
New Testament, first published at Worms in 1525. This 
takes us back to the land and the time of the beginning of 
printed books. _ Besides the quaint forms of spelling in Tyn- 
dale's titles to New Testament books, as Marke, Jhon, 
Romaynes, Hebrues, etc., it is interesting to note that he 
called only the first four of the Pauline writings epistles, the 
remaining books being styled "Pistles." 

Now for nearly a century and a half prior to Tyndale the 
New Testament in English had been circulated in manuscript 
form. By the year 1380 Wycliffe had completed his transla- 
tion, into middle English, of the New Testament, and although 
it was not put forth in printed form until 1848, yet it was so 

highly appreciated and widely multiplied that even to-day 

19 



20 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

more than one hundred and fifty manuscripts of Wycliffe's 
version are extant. Although neither John Wycliffe nor John 
Purvey, his able successor, admitted any more or any other 
than the usual twenty-seven books, yet it is important to 
note that another book was included in some later copies of 
their New Testament. This is the Epistle to the Laodicenes, 
a Latin compilation dating from the sixth century and not to 
be confused with the celebrated Greek Epistle of the same 
name current in the post-apostolic age. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 21 



CHAPTER II 

The Canon of the Latin New Testament 

Wycliffe leads us directly back to an even greater transla- 
tion by an equally great Christian scholar, the Latin version of 
St. Jerome. What the Greek Septuagint is to the Hebrew Old 
Testament the Latin Vulgate is to the Greek New Testament. 
In each case a companion rendering is made into the suc- 
ceeding tongue at once ancient, accurate, and deeply reverent. 
Protestants sometimes think of the Latin Vulgate as the 
peculiar possession of the Roman Church, but it is the com- 
mon inheritance of undivided Western Christendom, which 
had no other Bible during the thousand years of its sole and 
supreme dominance. Now, although Jerome's Old Testa- 
ment contains many Apocryphal books, his New Testament 
comprises precisely the twenty-seven books which we do 
receive as canonical. This millennium carries us back to 
about the year 380, to the age of the ecumenical councils, 
both Latin and Greek, and to a long lifetime of acquaintance 
with the Church Fathers of his age and of residence and re- 
search in all the great church libraries from Rome even unto 
Jerusalem. During this long era only one brief book ever 
appears to have claimed fellowship with Jerome's New Testa- 
ment, and this only in certain sporadic and limited editions 
and centuries after the Master's death. It is the spurious 
epistle to the Laodicenes, which, as we have seen, came into 
vogue at the end of the sixth century. Pope Gregory the 
Great is responsible for the doctrine that Paul was the author 
of this epistle, and, although he himself never accounted it as 
canonical, his opinion as to its authorship, together with the 



22 THE CANON. TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

fact of reference to an epistle of the Laodicenes, at the end of 
Colossians gave this letter frequent favor, yet even its special 
partisans, as John of Saulisbury, in the twelfth century do not 
fail to acknowledge its uncanonicity. The Latin text of this 
famous letter may be seen in Bishop Westcott's book on the 
canon, where is also given one of the quaint early English 
renderings of it taken from the printed version of Wycliffe, 
published by Forshall and Madden. 1 Thus we see that for 
1,500 years, or from our own day to that of St. Jerome, the 
volume called the New Testament has meant exactly the 
same thing. 

1 On the Canon of the New Testament, Appendix E, also p. 457f. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 23 



CHAPTER III 

The Canon of the Greek New Testament 

The convictions and testimony, as well as the epoch- 
making version of Jerome, are explicitly confirmed by the 
witness both of the fathers and the councils of his age. The 
great and learned names of Augustine and Rufinus stand as 
representative among the former, and the Councils of Car- 
thage and Hippo among the latter. The deliverance of the 
former Council (A. D. 397) on this subject is in these terms. 
After ordering that nothing shall be read in the church under 
the name of Divine Scriptures — "praeter Scripturas canonicas" 
— they proceed to specify those of the New Testament in the 
most deliberate and formal manner — "Sunt autem canonicce 
Scriptwce" : 

Of the Gospels Four Books. 

Of the Acts . One Book. 

Of Paul's Epistles Thirteen Books. 

To the Hebrews One Book. 

Of Peter's Epistles Two Books. 

Of John's Epistles Three Books. 

Of Jaines' Epistle One Book. 

Of Jude's Epistle One Book. 

Of the Apocalypse of John One Book. 

Total Twenty-seven Books. 

Now, it is conceded on all sides by modern historians, and 
notably by Professor Harnack, that the basis of the opinions 
of Jerome, Rufinus, and Augustine on the canon of the New 
Testament, as well as the declaration of the Councils cited, 
was the writings of that prince of Greek fathers, St. Athana- 
sius, who reflected the well-nigh universal opinion of the 
orthodox Greek fathers by at least as early as the middle of 



24 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

the fourth century. This is as far back as the completed 
canon of the New Testament can be traced. But it is also as 
far back as we can clearly trace the opinion or declaration of 
the undivided Church upon this subject. Prior to this cen- 
tury of distinct ecumenical consciousness, opinion had been 
provincial and individual, namely, Eastern, Western, Assyr- 
ian, African, Antiochian, Alexandrian, Roman, dominated by 
such men as Eusebius, Origen, and Irenaeus, not to overlook 
the direct and constructive influence of such names as Mar- 
cion and Tatian. 

Now, it must be conceded that in order to estimate accu- 
rately the varying opinions and prejudices of the various 
parties and leaders of the two long centuries lying between 
the formal recognition and the original writings of the New 
Testament books, great patience and perseverance of judg- 
ment must be exercised; but the path once so obscure is be- 
coming ever more plain, and it can be traced to-day with a 
confidence not hitherto known. 

Taking into account the fact that, of the twenty-seven 
books of the New Testament, twenty-one, or seven ninths, are 
letters and fifteen, or five ninths, are addressed either to 
individuals or local church societies; taking into account the 
fact that until the first half of the fourth century there cannot 
be said to have been any such thing as a great ecumenical 
church, and hence neither occasion nor opportunity for the 
definite or final settlement of a canon at all; taking into ac- 
count the fact that the scattered, nonresisting, and utterly 
defenseless societies of Christians were subjected throughout 
the second and third centuries to a series of searching and re- 
lentless persecutions, several of which were especially directed 
toward the complete annihilation of the few precious scrolls 
and copies of brief letters which they possessed, and that 
their enemies had at their command all of the machinery — 
social, civil, and religious — of the Roman empire; I say, 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 25 

taking all of these things into consideration, the wonder is, 
not that any of the sacred writings of the Christians perished, 
but, on the other hand, that any of those writings were pre- 
served, and that immediately upon the cessation of the age of 
persecution they were circulated and recognized so widely 
throughout the Church both east and west, that within the 
compass of a single generation the canon was settled for all 
time. 

Threading, then, our way back through the mazes of Chris- 
tian literary history from the great ecumenical councils to 
the apostolic age, we find that twenty of the twenty-seven 
books, or approximately nine tenths of the bulk of the New 
Testament, have been undisputed as to canonicity from the 
very days of their publication or writing. These twenty 
books are the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen 
epistles of St. Paul, the First Epistle of St. Peter, and the 
First Epistle of St. John. 

Not to go into any lengthy review of the evidence for this 
statement, I will simply name the chief patristic witnesses, as 
well as the chief catalogues or lists which contain these books : 
Of the Fathers all are witnessed to by Tertullian, Origen, and 
Eusebius; all but Philemon by Irenseus, Clement of Alexan- 
dria, and Cyprian; all but First John by Hippolytus; the 
Syriac Version (about 150 A. D.) witnesses to all twenty, and 
the Muratorian fragment (about 170 A. D.) to all save First 
Peter. ' 

The remaining seven books are Hebrews, James, Second 
Peter, Second and Third John, Jude, and Revelation. These 
are known as the third section of the New Testament canon, 
the Gospels and Pauline epistles with Aets^cpmprising the 
First and Second, and are often compared with the third 
section of the Old Testament canon, called the Hagiographa, 
as contrasted with the Pentatuech and Prophets respectively. 
Of these seven books, four are exceedingly brief, namely, 



26 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

Second Peter, Second and Third John, and Jude, comprising 
a fraction equal to one fifty-fifth of the entire New Testament; 
moreover, two of these four, namely, Second and Third John, 
are not only very brief, but besides being addressed to un- 
known individuals, are, comparatively speaking, of but slight 
intrinsic value to the Church at large. Let us, however, re- 
view the evidence for the canonicity of these seven books 
separately and somewhat in detail, condensing freely from 
Westcott, Gregory, and Harnack. 

1. For that of the Hebrews we have the Council of Carthage 
(397), of Laodicea (366), the Peshitto Version, Eusebius, Cyril 
of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Origen, Athanasius, Gregory Na- 
zianzen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, Rufinus, Innocent, 
and Isidore of Seville — indeed, so full is the testimony that 
Dr. Harnack places the Hebrews with the twenty undisputed 
books. It appears, moreover, upon careful examination that 
the doubts relative to this book had no real relation to canon- 
icity, but only to its authorship, which is not an essential 
circumstance, since many books of Scripture are anonymous 
and the authorship of some others entirely uncertain. 

2. For the Epistle of James we have the favorable testimony 
of the Canon Muratori, as well as the Peshitto Version, of the 
Councils of Carthage and Laodicea and of Cyril of Jerusalem, 
Epiphanius, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, 
Nicephorus, Augustine, Jerome, Rufinus, Innocent, and Isi- 
dore, among the Fathers. Why, then, was this epistle ever 
considered as at all doubtful respecting its canonicity? For 
two reasons: (1) Because of a certain doubt as to which of 
three Jameses it might be traceable, and (2) because of a cer- 
tain impression in a very narrow circle of a doctrinal diversity 
between it and Paul's writings as to justification by faith. It 
is safe to say, however, that no reputable critic would con- 
sider either of these grounds tenable as against the canonicity 
of this epistle. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 27 

3. The testimony in favor of Second Peter and of Jude is 
exactly the same in both as that in favor of the Epistle of 
James with the exception of the fact that neither stands in 
the Peshitto Version, and Jude alone, not Second Peter, in 
Canon Muratori. This, however, probably arises from the 
fact that in the Syrian churches, as well as in some other 
districts, suspicion arose because of a remarkable resemblance 
between these two letters, not in sentiment or substance 
merely, but in minute forms of expression, so that the one 
might seem to have been copied from the other; hence arose 
the false assumption that but one could be canonical, and, as 
division naturally resulted on the question as to which of the 
two that might be, the upshot was that both fell into the cate- 
gory of the doubtful, although the opinion finally arrived at, 
in the fourth century, was, as we have seen, that each should 
hold its place in the canon; and, despite the ill-conceived 
conception of Luther, such has remained the Church's de- 
cision until to-day. 

4. Second and Third John, although so little quoted in the 
early post-apostolic age because of their very brevity, private 
reference, and lack of general interest, nevertheless were but 
little disputed and are abundantly supported in respect of 
their canonicity by those to whom appeal can alone be made. 
In their favor stands the Councils of Laodicea and Carthage, 
possibly the Canon Muratori, John of Damascus, Cyril of 
Jerusalem (for Second John), Epiphanius, Athanasius, Greg- 
ory Nazianzen, Leontius, Augustine, Jerome, Rufinus, Inno- 
cent, and Isidore. Lastly, Harnack concedes, and proves, 
indeed, that they were written by the same author as First 
John and the Gospel of John, although he calls him the 
presbyter only. 

5. Finally, we have the Apocalypse. Now, the very fact 
that this book is an apocalypse puts it in a category sui 
generis. It cannot be disputed that at the middle of the 



28 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

fourth century it was received as of undoubted canonicity. 
Again, it cannot be denied that during the very earliest post- 
apostolic age, that is, during the second century, it held the 
same position; indeed, of all the seven books just passed in 
review, that of Revelation may be said to stand, as far as 
canonicity goes, upon superior ground. It is found in the 
Canon Muratori, in the list of the Council of Carthage, in 
Epiphanius, Origen, Athanasius, Leontius, Augustine, Jerome, 
Rufinus, Innocent, Cassiodorus, and Isidore of Seville, and 
Professor Harnack saj^s it should stand with the other Johan- 
nine writings as canonical. It is now widely held that the 
chief reason for any apparent doubt as to the canonicity of 
Revelation, during the third century, arose from the fact that 
during that time Chiliastic doctrines of the grossest forms 
prevailed, especially in the Eastern Church, and as the Apoca- 
lypse was utilized to support these doctrines, and many of 
the Fathers were unequal in ability of interpretation to the 
leaders of the heretical school, they fell to discrediting and in 
some instances denying outright its canonicity. In the fol- 
lowing century, however, the Chiliastic errors were overcome, 
and "the Apocalypse has shone forth with all its ancient but 
mysterious splendor." 

Let us now review, in a few words, the present state of the 
subject in hand. 

We observe first, that from the middle of the fourth century 
the canon of the New Testament has comprised but twenty- 
seven well-known books. 

Second, that neither before nor since that date were any 
other writings accepted as canonical by the Church universal. 

Third, that because of either (1) the very nature of the 
documents themselves, being strictly private and so not 
widely circulated, or (2) because of disputed authorship, and 
so, in some regions, being temporarily rejected because of 
violent partisan prejudice, or (3) because of their falling for 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 29 

a time into disrepute on account of the abuses to which they 
were subjected by an unscrupulous dogmatism, certain of the 
books, never more than seven, all told, and really hardly more 
than four, or at most five, and those the very briefest and 
most nearly ephemeral, were temporarily disputed, only to 
be finally accepted as undoubtedly canonical, upon an abso- 
lute equality with the other twenty. 

Fourth, that said final acceptance on the part both of the 
majority of the Fathers, who seriously examined into the 
question while the data were abundant, and of the great 
ecumenical councils, is a real guarantee that their decisions 
were based on good and sufficient evidence, and that hence- 
forth the onus probendi rests upon the shoulders of him who 
chooses to reject these decisions. 



#§&■ 



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Plate II. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus. 



81 



PART II 

THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Its sources, its errors, and the methods, 
history, and results of its criticism 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Gregory, C. R., Textkritik des Neuen Testaments. Leipzig, 1900-1909. 
Gregory, C. R., Einleitung in das Neue Testament. Leipzig, 1909. 
Gregory, C. R., Canon and Text of the New Testament. Edinburgh, 

1908. 
Kenyon, F. G., Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testa- 
ment. Second edition. London, 1912 . 
Lake, K., The Text of the New Testament. Second edition. London, 

1905. 
Milligan, G., Selections from the Greek Papyri. Cambridge, 1910. 
Nestle, E., Einfuhrung in das Griechischen Neue Testament. Gottingen, 

1899. 
Scrivener, F. H., A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New 

Testament. Fourth edition. London, 1894. 
Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography. Second 

edition. London, 1894. 
Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek, with Introduction. 

Cambridge, 1896. 
Von Soden, H., Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments. Berlin, 1910. 
Zahn, Theo., Introduction to the New Testament. Edinburgh, 1910. 



INTRODUCTION 



The literary evidence to the text of the New Testament is 
vastly more abundant than that to any other series of writ- 
ings of like compass in the entire range of ancient letters. Of 
the sacred books of the Hebrew Bible there is no known copy 
antedating the tenth century of the Christian era. Of Homer 
there is no complete copy earlier than the thirteenth century. 
Of Herodotus there is no manuscript earlier than the tenth 
century. Of Virgil but one copy is earlier than the fourth 
century, and but a fragment of all Cicero's writings is even as 
old as this. 

Of the New Testament, however, we have two splendid 
manuscripts of the fourth century, ten of the fifth, twenty- 
five of the sixth, and in all a total of more than three thousand 
copies in whole or in part of the Greek New Testament. 

To these copies of the text itself may be added the very 
important and even more ancient evidence of the versions of 
the New Testament in the Latin, Syriac, and Egyptian 
tongues and the quotations and clear references to the New 
Testament readings found in the works of the early Church 
Fathers, as well as the inscriptions and monumental data in 
Syria, Asia Minor, Africa, Italy, and Greece, dating from the 
very age of the apostles and their immediate successors. 

It thus appears that the documents of the Christian faith 
are both so many and so widely' scattered that these very 
facts more than any others have embarrassed the final de- 
termination of the text. Now, however, the science of textual 

35 



36 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

criticism has so far advanced, and the textual problems of the 
Greek Testament have been so largely traversed, that one 
may read the Christian writings with an assurance approxi- 
mating certainty. Professor Eberhard Nestle speaks of the 
Greek text of the New Testament issued by Westcott and 
Hort as the "nearest in its approach to the goal." Professor 
Alexander Souter's edition with a select apparatus criticus 
of the revisers' Greek New Testament (Oxford, 1910) no 
doubt attains even a higher water mark. Let us trace as far 
as it can be done, in a clear and untechnical manner, the 
process of connection between the original writings and this, 
one of the latest editions of the Greek New Testament. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 37 



CHAPTER I 
The Sources of Evidence for the Text of the New Testament 

A discussion of the sources of evidence for the text of the 
New Testament involves: 

1. The Autographs of the New Testament Writers. 

Until very recent times it has not been customary to take 
up with any degree of confidence, if at all, the subject of New 
Testament autographs, but since the researches in particular 
of Dalman and Deissmann, Moulton (W. F.) and Milligan 
(George), it is not only appropriate but incumbent upon the 
careful student. 

The whole tendency of recent investigation is to give less 
place to the oral tradition of Christ's life and teaching and to 
press back the date of the writing of the synoptic Gospels 
into the period falling between Pentecost and the destruction 
of Jerusalem. Sir William M. Ramsay goes so far as to 
claim that "antecedent probability founded on the general 
character of personal and contemporary Greek or Grseco- 
Asiatic society," would indicate "that the first Christian 
account of the circumstances connected with the death of 
Jesus must be presumed to have been written in the year 
when Jesus died." (Letters to the Seven Churches, p. 7.) 
W. M. Flinders Petrie argues to the same end and says, 
"Some generally accepted Gospels must have been in circula- 
tion before 60 A. D. The mass of briefer records and logia 
which the habits and culture of that age would naturally 
produce must have been welded together within ten or twenty 
years by the external necessities." (The Growth of the 
Gospels, p. 7.) 



38 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

The autographs of the New Testament writers have long 
been lost, but the discovery during the last few years of con- 
temporary documents enable us to form fairly clear notions 
as to their general literary character and conditions. 

In the first place, papyrus w T as probably the material em- 
ployed by all the* New Testament writers, even the original 
Gospel of Matthew, and the general Epistle of James, the only 
books written in Palestine not being excepted, for the reason 
they were not originally written with a view to their liturgical 
use, in which case vellum might possibly have been employed. 

Again, the evidence of the writings themselves witnesses to 
the various processes followed during the first century. Dic- 
tation was largely used by St. Paul, the names of four at least 
of his secretaries — Tertius, Sosthenes, Timothy, and Silvanus 
— being given while the master himself, as in many of the 
Egyptian papyri, appended his own signature, sometimes 
with a sentence or two at the end. The method of personal 
research was pursued, and compilation of data, including folk- 
lore and genealogies, together with groups of cognate matters 
in artistic forms, and abundant quotation from writings held 
in high esteem by the readers, as in the first and third Gospels 
and the book of Acts. 

The presentation copy of one's works must have been 
written with unusual pains in case of their dedication to a 
patrician patron, as Luke "To the most noble Theophilus." 
For speculation as to the probable dimensions of the original 
papjrrus rolls of New Testament books, one will find Pro- 
fessor J. Rendel Harris and Dr. F. G. Kenyon extremely sug- 
gestive and from opposite viewpoints. (Compare Kenyon, 
Handbook of Textual Criticism of the New Testament; 
Harris, New Testament Autographs.) 

2. The Greek Copies or Manuscripts of the New Testament 
Text. 

This has been hitherto and probably will continue to be the 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 39 

chief source of data in this great field. For determining the 
existence of the text in its most ancient form the autographs 
are of highest value. For determining the content and 
extent of the text, the versions are of greatest worth. For 
estimating the meaning and at the same time for gaining 
additional data both as to existence and extent of usage of 
the New Testament the quotations of its text by the Church 
Fathers, whether as apologists, preachers, or historians, in 
Syria, Greece, Africa, Italy, or Gaul, are of exceeding impor- 
tance. But for determining the readings of the text itself the 
Greek manuscripts or copies of the original autographs are still 
the principal source of evidence and criticism. 

About four thousand manuscripts, in whole or in part, of 
the Greek* New Testament are now known. These manu- 
scripts furnish abundant evidence for determining the read- 
ing of practically the entire New Testament, while for the 
Gospels and most important epistles the evidence is unprec- 
edented both for quality and clearness. They are usually 
divided into two classes — uncial, or large hand, and minus- 
cule, or small hand, often called cursive. The term "cursive'* 
is not satisfactory, since it does not coordinate with the term 
"uncial," nor are so-called cursive features, as ligatures and 
oval forms, confined to minuscule manuscripts. The uncials 
comprise about one- hundred copies, extending from the 
fourth to the tenth century. The minuscules include the 
remaining manuscripts, and fall between the ninth century 
and the invention of printing. 

3. Vernacular Versions, or Translations of the Scriptures 
into the Tongues of Western Christendom. 

Some of these versions were made as early as the second 
century, and thus antedate by several generations our best- 
known Greek texts. It is considered by many as providential 
that the Bible was early translated into different tongues, so 
that its corruption to any large extent became almost, if not 



40 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

altogether, an impossibility, since the versions of necessity 
belonged to parts of the Church widely removed from one 
another and with very diverse doctrinal and institutional 
tendencies. 

The testimony of a translation to the exact form of words 
used, whether in an autograph or a Greek copy of an author, 
is at best not beyond dispute, but as evidence for the presence 
or absence of whole sections or clauses of the original their 
standing is of prime importance. Such extreme literalness 
frequently prevails that the vernacular idiom is entirely set 
aside and the order and construction of words in the original 
sources are slavishly followed and even transliterated, so that 
their bearing on many questions at issue is direct and con- 
vincing. 

Although the Greek New Testament has now been trans- 
lated into all the principal tongues of the earth, comparative 
criticism is confined to those versions made during the first 
eight centuries. 

4. Patristic quotations afford a unique basis of evidence for 
determining readings of the New Testament. 

So able and energetic were the Church Fathers of the early 
centuries that it is entirely probable that the whole text of 
the Greek New Testament could be recovered from this 
source alone if the writings of apologists, homilists, and com- 
mentators were carefully collated. It is also true that the 
earliest heretics, as well as the defenders of the faith, recog- 
nized the importance of determining the original text, so that 
their remains also comprise no mean source for critical re- 
search. It is evident that the value of the patristic quota- 
tions will vary according to such factors as the reliability of 
the reading as quoted, the personal equation or habit of 
accuracy or looseness of the particular wTiter, and the purity 
or corruption of the text he employed. One of the marked 
advantages of this sort of evidence rises from the fact that it 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 41 

affords additional ground for localizing and dating the various 
classes of texts found both in original copies and versions. 
For general study the more prominent Church Fathers of 
the second, third, and fourth centuries are sufficient, though 
profitable investigation may be made of a much wider period. 
By the beginning of the fifth century, however, the type of 
text quoted almost universally was closely akin to that known 
as the Textus Receptus. 

5. Lectionaries and service books of the early Christian 
period afford a source of considerable value in determining 
the general type of texts, together with the order, contents, 
and distribution of the several books of the canon. 

As the Lectionary systems both of the Eastern and Western 
Churches reached back to post-apostolic times, and all are 
marked by great verbal conservatism, they present data of 
real worth for determining certain problems of textual criti- 
cism. From the very nature of the case, being compiled for 
liturgical use, the readings are often introduced and ended by 
set formulas, but these are easily separated from the text 
itself, which generally follows copy faithfully. Even the sys- 
tems of chapter headings and divisions furnish clues for 
classifying and comparing texts, for there is high probability 
that texts with the same chapter divisions come from the 
same country. Probably the earliest system of chapter divi- 
sions is preserved in Codex Vaticanus coming down to us 
from Alexandria probably by way of Caesarea. That it ante- 
dates the Codex in which it appears is seen from the fact that 
the Pauline epistles are numbered as comprising a continuous 
book with a break between Galatians and Ephesians, and the 
dislocated section numbers attached to Hebrews which fol- 
lows Second Thessalonians here, though the numbers indicate 
its earlier position after Galatians. Another system of chap- 
ter divisions at least as old as the fifth century, found in 
Codex Alexandrinus, cuts the text into much longer sections 



42 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

known as cephalia major a. In all cases the numeration begins 
with the second section, the first being considered introduc- 
tory. Bishop Eusebius developed a system of text divisions 
of the Gospels based upon an earlier method attributed to 
Ammonius, adding a series of tables or canons. The first 
table contains sections giving events common to all four 
evangelists, and its number was written beneath the section 
number in the margin in each Gospel, so that their parallels 
could be readily found. The second, third, and fourth canons 
contain lists of sections in which three of the Gospels have 
passages in common (the combination Mark-Luke- John does 
not occur); the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth lists 
in which two combine (the combination Mark-John does not 
occur); and canon ten those peculiar to some one of the 
Gospels. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 43 



CHAPTER II 
The Necessity of Sifting and Criticizing the Evidence 

Criticism from its very nature concerns itself entirely with 
the problems suggested by the errors of various kinds which it 
brings to light. In the writings of the New Testament the re- 
sources of textual evidence are so vast, exceeding, as we have 
seen, those of any other ancient literature, sacred or secular, 
that the area of actual error is relatively quite appreciable, 
though it must be remembered that this very abundance of 
textual variety ultimately makes for the integrity and doc- 
trinal unity of the teaching of the New Testament books. 
Conjectural emendation, which has played so large a part 
in the restoration of other writings, has but slight place in 
the textual criticism of the New Testament, whose materials 
are so abundant that the difficulty is rather to select right 
readings than to invent them. 

We have catalogued the principal sources of right readings, 
but on the most casual investigations of them discover large 
numbers of wrong readings mingled with the true, and must 
proceed to consider the sources of error, or various readings, 
as they are called, of which approximately some two hundred 
thousand are known to exist in the various manuscripts, ver- 
sions, patristic citations, and other data for the text. "Not," 
as Dr. Warfield says, "that there are two hundred thousand 
places in the New Testament where various readings occur, 
but there are nearly two hundred thousand readings all told, 
and in many cases the documents so differ among themselves 
that many various readings are counted on a single word, for 



44: THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

each document is compared in turn with one standard and the 
number of its divergencies ascertained; then these sums are 
themselves added together and the result given as the num- 
ber of actually observed variations." Dr. Ezra Abbott was 
accustomed to remark that "about nineteen twentieths of the 
variations have so little support that, although they are 
various readings, no one would think of them as rival readings; 
and nineteen twentieths of the remainder are of so little im- 
portance that their adoption or rejection would cause no ap- 
preciable difference in the sense of the passages where they 
occur." Dr. Hort's view was, that "upon about one word in 
eight, various readings exist, supported by about sufficient 
evidence to bid us pause and look at it; about one word in 
sixty has various readings upon it, supported by such evi- 
dence as to render our decision nice and difficult, but so man}'' 
variations are trivial that about one word in every thousand 
has upon it substantial variation supported by such evidence 
as to call out the effort of the critic in deciding between the 
readings." 

The oft-repeated dictum of Bentley is still valid, that "the 
real text of the sacred writers is competently exact, nor is one 
article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost, 
choose awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design 
out of the whole lump of readings." 

Despite all this, the true scholar must be completely fur- 
nished rightly to discriminate in the matter of diverse read- 
ings. From the very nature of the case it is probable that 
errors should be frequent in the New Testament. Even 
printed works are not free from them, as is seen in the most 
carefully edited editions of the English Bible; but in manu- 
scripts they are increased in direct proportion to the number 
of various copies still extant. 

There are two classes of errors giving rise to various read- 
ings, unconscious or unintentional and conscious or intentional. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 45 

Of the first class, that of unconscious errors, there are usually 
named five kinds: 

1. Errors of the eye, where the sight of the copyist con- 
fuses letters or endings that are similar, writing, for example, 

6 for C; O for 6; A for A or A; XI for TI; 

CAN for TIAN; M for A A. 

Here should be named homceoteleuton, which arises when 
two successive lines in a copy end with the same word or 
syllable, and the eye, catching the second line instead of the 
first, the copyist omits the intervening words, as in Codex C 
of John vi, 39. 

2. Errors of the pen. Here are classed all that body of 
variations due to the miswriting by the penman of what lay 
correctly enough in his mind, but through carelessness he 
failed rightly to transfer to the new copy. Transpositions of 
similar letters has evidently occurred in Codices E, M, and 
H of Mark xiv, 65; also in Codex H 2 and Codex L 2 of Acts 
xiii, 23. 

3. Errors of speech. Here are included those variations 
which have sprung from the habitual forms of speech to 
which the scribe in the particular case was accustomed, and 
which he, therefore, was inclined to write. Under this head 
comes itacism, arising from the confusion of vowels and 
diphthongs, especially in dictation. Thus: i is constantly 
written for sl and vice versa; ai fore; rj and i for ei; tj and 
oi for v; o for w; e for i\. It is observed that in Codex X we 
have scribal preference for i alone, while in Codex B ei is 
preferred. 

4. Errors of memory. These are explained as having arisen 
from "the copyist holding a clause or sequence in his some- 
what treacherous memory between the glance at the manu- 
script to be copied and his writing down what he saw there." 
Here are classed the numerous petty changes in the order of 



46 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

the words and the substitution of synonyms; as, slirev for £</>??; 
sk for and, and vice versa. 

5. Errors of judgment. Under this class Dr. Warfield cites 
"many misreadings of abbreviations, as also the adoption of 
marginal glosses into the text by which much of the most 
striking corruption which has ever entered the text has been 
produced." Notable instances of this type of error are found 
in John v, 1-4, explaining how it happened that the waters of 
Bethesda were healing; John vii, 53 to viii, 12, the passage 
concerning the adulteress, and the last twelve verses of Mark. 

Turning to the second class, that of conscious or inten- 
tional errors, we may tabulate: 

1. Linguistic or rhetorical corrections, no doubt often made 
in entire good faith under the impression that an error had 
previously crept into the text and needed correcting. Thus, 
second aorist terminations in a are changed to o, and the like. 

2. Historical corrections. Under this head is placed all 
that group of changes similar to the case in Mark i, 2, where 
the phrase "Isaiah, the prophet," is changed into "the 
prophets." 

3. Harmonistic corrections. These are quite frequent in 
the Gospels; for example, the attempted assimilation of the 
Lord's Prayer in Luke to the fuller form in Matthew, and 
quite possibly the addition of the words "of sin" to the phrase 
in John viii, 34, "Every one that doeth sin is a slave." A 
certain group of harmonistic corruptions, where scribes allow 
the memory, perhaps unconsciously, to affect their writing, 
may rightly be classed under errors of memory, previously 
noted in paragraph No. 4, on page 45. 

4. Doctrinal corrections. Of these it is difficult to assert any 
unquestioned cases unless it be the celebrated trinitarian pas- 
sage, 1 John v, 7, 8 a , or the several passages in which fasting is 
coupled with prayer, as in Matt, xvii, 21; Mark ix, 29; Acts 
x, 30; and 1 Cor. vii, 5. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 47 

5. Liturgical corrections. These are very common, espe- 
cially in the Lectionaries, as at the beginning of lessons, and 
are even found in early uncials, for example, Luke viii, 31; 
x, 23, and elsewhere. 



4:8 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 



CHAPTER III 
The Methods of Critical Procedure 

Here, as in other disciplines, "necessity is the mother of 
invention," and the principles of critical procedure rest almost 
entirely on the data connected with the errors and discrepan- 
cies which have consciously or unconsciously crept into the 
text. The dictum of Dr. Salmon, that "God has at no time 
given his Church a text absolutely free from ambiguity" is 
true warrant for free and continued inquiry into this attractive 
field of study. 

The process of textual criticism has gradually evolved cer- 
tain rules based upon judgments formed after patiently 
classifying and taking into account all the documentary evi- 
dence available both internally and externally. 

1. An older reading is preferable to one later, since it is 
presumed to be nearer the original. However, mere age is no 
sure proof of purity, as it is now clear that very many of the 
corruptions of the text became current at an early date, so 
that in some cases it is found that later copies really represent 
the more ancient reading. 

2. A more difficult reading, if well supported, is preferable 
to one that is easier, since it is the tendency of copyists to 
substitute an easy, well-known, and smooth reading for one 
that was harsh, unusual, and ungrammatical. This was 
commonly done with the best of intentions, the scribe sup- 
posing he was rendering a real service to truth. 

3. A shorter is preferable to a longer reading, since here 
again the common tendency of scribes is toward additions 
and insertions rather than omissions. Hence arose, in the first 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 49 

place, the marginal glosses and insertions between the lines 
which later transcribers incorporated into the text. Although 
this rule has been widely accepted, it must be applied with 
discrimination, in some cases a longer reading being clearly 
more in harmony with the style of the original, or the shorter 
having arisen from a case of homceoteleuton. 

4. A reading is preferable, other things being equal, from 
which the origin of all alternative readings can most clearly 
be derived. This principle is at once of the utmost im- 
portance, and at the same time demands the most careful 
application. It is a sharp two-edged sword, dangerous alike 
to the user and his opponent. 

5. A reading is preferable, says Scrivener, "which best suits 
the peculiar style, manner, and habits of thought of an au- 
thor, it being the tendency of copyists to overlook the idio- 
syncrasies of the writer. Yet habit, or the love of critical 
correction, may sometimes lead the scribe to change the 
text to his author's more usual style, as well as to depart 
from it through inadvertence, so that we may clearly apply 
the rule where the external evidence is not unequally 
balanced." 

6. A reading is preferable which reflects no doctrinal bias, 
whether orthodox, on the one side, or heretical on the other. 
This principle is so obvious that it is accepted on all sides, 
but in practice wide divergence arises, owing to the doctrinal 
bias of the critic himself. 

These are the main canons of internal evidence. On the 
side of external evidence may be briefly summarized what has 
already been implied: 

1. A more ancient reading is usually one that is supported by 
the more ancient manuscripts. 

2. A reading which has the undoubted support of the 
earliest manuscripts, versions, and patristic writers is un- 
questionably original. 



50 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

3. A disagreement of early authorities usually indicates the 
existence of a corruption prior to them all. 

4. Mere numerical preponderance of witnesses to a reading 
of any one class, locality, or time, is of comparative insig- 
nificance. 

5. Great significance must be granted to the testimony in 
favor of a reading by witnesses from localities, or times 
widely apart, and it can only be satisfactorily met by a 
balancing agreement of witnesses also from different times 
and localities. 

These rules, though they are all excellent and each has been 
employed by different critics with good results, are now 
somewhat displaced, or, rather, supplemented by the applica- 
tion of a principle very widely used, though not discovered, by 
Westcott and Hort, known as the principle of genealogy of 
manuscripts. Inspection of the very broad range of witnesses 
to the New Testament text has led to their classification into 
groups and families, according to their prevailing errors, it 
being obvious that the greater the community of error the 
closer will be the relationship of witnesses. 

Although some of the terms used by Westcott and Hort, as 
well as their content, have given rise to well-placed criticism, 
yet their grouping of manuscripts is so self-convincing that it 
bids fair, with but little modification, to hold, as it has done 
thus far, first place in the field. 

Sir Frederick G. Kenyon 1 has so admirably stated the 
method that the gist of his account will be given, largely 
using his identical words. 

As in all scientific textual criticism, four steps are followed 
by Westcott and Hort: (1) The individual readings and the 
authorities for them are studied; (2) an estimate is formed of 
the character of the several authorities; (3) an effort is made 

1 Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. F. G. Kenyon. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 51 

to group these authorities as descendants of common ances- 
tors; and (4) the individual readings are again taken up and 
the first provisional estimate of their comparative probability 
revised in the light of the knowledge gained as to the value 
and interrelation of the several authorities. 

Applying these methods, four groups of texts emerge from 
the mass of early witnesses: 

1. The Antiochian, or Syrian, the most popular of all, and 
that at the base of the Greek Textus Receptus and the Eng- 
lish Authorized Versions. In the Gospels the great uncials 
A and C support it, as well as N 2 and $, most of the later 
uncials and almost all minuscules, the Peshitto Syrian Ver- 
sion, and the bulk of the Church Fathers from Chrysostom. 

2. The Neutral, a term giving rise to criticism on all sides, 
and by some displaced by the term "Egyptian." This group 
is small, but of high antiquity, including & B L T E, A and C, 
save in the Gospels, the Coptic Versions, especially the 
Bohairic, and some of the minuscules, notably 33 and 81. 

3. The Alexandrian, closely akin to the Neutral group, not 
found wholly in any one manuscript, but traceable in such 
manuscripts as ^ C L X, 33, and the Bohairic Version when 
they differ from the other members headed by B. 

4. The Western, another term considered ambiguous, since 
it includes some important manuscripts and Fathers very 
ancient and very Eastern. Here belong DD 2 E 2 F 2 G 2 among 
the uncials, 28, 235, 383, 565, 614, 700, and 876 among the 
minuscules, the Old Syriac and Old Latin and sometimes the 
Sahidic Versions. 

Of these groups, by far the most superior, is the Neutral, 
though Westcott and Hort have made it so exclusively coin- 
cide with Codex B that they appear at times to have broken 
one of the great commandments of a philologist as quoted by 
Dr. Nestle from a German professor — "Thou shalt worship 
no Codices." 



52 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

Now, the only serious dispute centers on the apparent slight 
which this system may have done to the so-called Western 
type of texts in group four. The variants to this family are 
extensive and important, and appear due to an extremely free 
handling of the text at some early date when scribes felt them- 
selves at liberty to vary the language of the sacred books, and 
even to insert additional passages of considerable length. 
Although this type of text is of very early origin, and though 
prevalent in the East was very early carried to the West, 
and, being widely known there, has been called Western, yet 
because of the liberties above referred to, its critical value 
is not high save in the one field of omissions. In Egypt, how- 
ever, and especially Alexandria, just as in the case of the Old 
Testament, the text of the New Testament was critically 
considered and conserved, and doubtless the family called 
Neutral, as well as the Alexandrian, springs up here, and 
through close association with Caesarea becomes prevalent in 
Palestine, and is destined to prevail everywhere. 

The Westcott and Hort contention, that the Antiochian 
text arose as a formal attempt at repeated revision of the 
original text in Antioch, is not so convincing, but for want of 
a better theory still holds its place. Their objections, how- 
ever, to its characteristic readings are well taken and every- 
where accepted, even Von Soden practically agreeing here, 
though naming it the Koivi) text. It is also interesting to find 
that Von Soden's Hesychian text so closely parallels the 
Neutral- Alexandrian above and his Jerusalem family the 
Western. And thus we arrive at the present consensus of 
opinion as to the genealogical source of the text of the New 
Testament. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 53 



CHAPTER IV 
The History and Results of the Process 

Abundant evidence exists, and is constantly growing, to 
show that critical opinion and methods were known at least 
from the very days of the formation of the New Testament 
canon. But we shall sketch the history only in modern times. 
The era of printing necessarily marked a new epoch here. 

Among available manuscripts choice must be made and a 
standard set, and, in view of the material at hand, it is re- 
markable how ably the work was done. It began in Spain 
under Cardinal Ximenes of Toledo, who printed at Alcala 
(Complutum) in 1514 the New Testament volume of his 
great Polyglot, though it was not actually issued until 1522. 
Meanwhile the great Erasmus, under patronage of Froben 
the printer, of Basel, had been preparing a Greek New Testa- 
ment, and it was published early in 1516 in a single volume 
and at low cost and had reached its third edition by 1522. 
His fourth edition of 1527 contains Erasmus's Definitive 
Text, and besides using Cardinal Ximenes's, had the advan- 
tage of minuscule manuscripts 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

The next important step was taken by Robert Estienne 
(Stephanus), whose third edition, Regia, a folio published 
in Paris in 1550, was a distinct advance, and, though based 
distinctly upon the work of Ximenes and Erasmus, had 
marginal readings from fifteen new manuscripts, one of 
which was Codex Bezse (D). The learned Theodore Beza 
himself worked with Stephanus's son Henri and brought out 
no less than nine editions of the New Testament, but no 
great critical advance was made in them. The same may be 



54 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

said of the seven Elzevir editions brought out at Leyden 
and Amsterdam between 1624 and 1678, the second, that of 
1633, in the preface of which occurs the phrase "Textum ergo 
habes nunc, ab omnibus receptum," becoming the continental 
standard as the 1550 edition of Stephanus has for England. 
Thus we arrive at the Textus Receptus and the period of 
preparation is closed. 

The second period, or that of discovery and research, was 
ushered in by the great London Polyglot of 1657, edited by 
Brian Walton (later Bishop of Chester), with collations by 
Archbishop Ussher, of fifteen fresh manuscripts, including 
Codex A and Codex 59. But Dr. John Mill, of Oxford, was 
the Erasmus of this period, and in 1707, after thirty years of 
labor, brought out the Greek Textus Receptus with fresh 
collations of seventy-eight manuscripts, many versions, and 
quotations from the early Fathers. His manuscripts included 
A, B, D, E, K, 28, 33, 59, 69, 71, the Peshitto, the Old Latin, 
the Vulgate, and his Prolegomena set a new standard for 
textual criticism. This apparatus was rightly appreciated by 
Richard Bentley, of Cambridge, and a revised text of the Greek 
and of the Vulgate New Testament was projected along lines 
which have prevailed until this day. The work and wide 
correspondence of Bentley had stirred up continental scholars, 
and J. A. Bengel published, in 1734, at Tubingen, a Greek 
New Testament with the first suggestion as to genealogical 
classification of manuscripts. J. J. Wetstein, of Basle and 
Amsterdam, though a very great collector of data and the 
author of the system of manuscript notation which has con- 
tinued ever since, made little critical advance. J. S. Semler, 
taking Wetstein's material, began rightly to interpret it, and 
his pupil, J. J. Griesbach, carried the work still further, clearly 
distinguishing for the first time a Western, an Alexandrian, 
and a Constantinopolitan recension. With Carl Laehmann 
began the last epoch in New Testament criticism, which has 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 55 

succeeded in going behind the Textus Receptus and establish- 
ing an authentic text based on the most ancient sources. He 
applied the critical methods with which he was familiar in 
editing the classics, and with the help of P. Buttmann pro- 
duced an edition in 1842-50 which led the way directly toward 
the goal. But they were limited in materials and Teschendorf 
soon furnished these. G. F. C. Teschendorf, both as collector 
and editor, is the foremost man thus far in the field. His 
eighth edition, 1872, of the Greek New Testament, together 
with his Prolegomena, completed and published by C. R. 
Gregory, set a new standard. Dr. Gregory's German edition 
of the Prolegomena (1900-09) supplemented by his Die 
Griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (1908), 
marks the further advances of the master through his master 
pupil. Meanwhile S. P. Tregelles was doing almost as pro- 
digious and valuable a work in England, and thus preparing 
for the final advances at Cambridge. F. H. A. Scrivener also 
ranks high, and did extremely valuable though somewhat 
conservative work in the same direction. 

In 1881 "the greatest edition ever published," according to 
Professor Souter, was brought out in England coincident 
with the Revised Version of the English New Testament. 
This, together with their introduction, which the same writer 
characterizes as "an achievement never surpassed in the 
scholarship of any country," was the joint product of B. F. 
Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, friends and coworkers for many 
years in the University of Cambridge. Thus with the end 
of the nineteenth century the history of the process may be 
said to close, though both process and progress still advance 
with ever-increasing triumph. The present century has already 
received the earnest of what is destined to follow in this great 
field in the monumental work (Die Schriften des Neuen Testa- 
ments in ihrer altesten erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt, auf 
Grund ihrer Textgeschichte. Berlin, 1900-1912) of Dr. 



56 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

Freiherr Von Soden, whose passing so recently has sorely 
bereft the New Testament world. Part I (Untersuchungen) 
of two thousand pages has already deeply influenced both 
thought and method in the entire world of criticism. His 
fruitful life while Professor in the University of Berlin is only 
paralleled by that of Professor Dr. Caspar Rene Gregory, of 
the University of Leipzig, to whom we look with high expec- 
tation for what will probably be the definitive text of the 
Greek New Testament for generations to come. 




Plate III. St. Luke, from Drew MS. IX. 



57 



PART III 

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE GREEK 
NEW TESTAMENT 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Birt, T., Das an tike Buehwesen. Berlin, 1882. 

Ebers, Georg, The Writing Material of Antiquity, Cosmopolitan 
Magazine, New York, November, 1893. 

Grenfell, B. P., and Hunt, A. S., Sayings of Our Lord. Oxford, 1897. 

Hammond, C. E., Textual Criticism Applied to the New Testament. 
Fifth edition, revised. Oxford, 1900. 

Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities. New 
York, 1897. 

Harris, J. R., Stichometry. Cambridge and London, 1893. 

Johnston, H. W., Latin Manuscripts. Chicago, 1897. 

Kenyon, F. G., The Palaeography of Greek Papyri. Oxford, 1899. 

Kenyon, F. G., Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New 
Testament with 16 facsimiles. London, 1901. 

Madan, F., Books in Manuscript. London, 1893. 

Middleton, J. H., Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Medi- 
aeval Times. Cambridge, 1892. 

Mitchell, E. C, The Critical Handbook of the Greek New Testa- 
ment. New and enlarged edition. New York, 1896. 

Montfaucon, B. de, Palaeographie Graeca. Paris, 1708. 

Nestle, Eberhard, Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the 
Greek New Testament. London, 1901. 

Schaff, P., Companion to the Greek Testament and English Ver- 
sion. Fourth edition. New York, 1891. 

Scrivener, F. H. A., A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the 
New Testament. Fourth edition. London and New York, 1894. 

Silvestre, J. B., Universal Palaeography. London, 1850, with plates. 

Taylor, Isaac, The History of the Alphabet. New edition. Lon- 
don, 1899. 

Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography. 
London and New York, 1893. 

Tischendorf, C, Prolegomena to the Greek Testament, prepared 
by C. R. Gregory and E. Abbot. Leipzig, 1884-94. 

Warfield, B. B., An Introduction to the Criticism of the New 
Testament. Fourth thousand. New York, n. d. 

Wattenbach, W., Anleitung znr Griechischen Palaeographie. 
Second edition. Leipzig, 1877. 

West wood, J. O. , Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria, London, n. d. 

Wilken, TL, Tafeln zur aelteren Griechischen Palaeographie. Leip- 
zig and Berlin, 1891. 

60 



THE MANUSCRIPTS OF 
THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT 



CHAPTER I 
The Materials on which the Manuscripts were Written 

The Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, so far as 
known, were written on papyrus, parchment, or paper. The 
autographs, both of the historical and epistolary writers, are 
supposed to have been written on papyrus. The great uncial 
copies and the most valued of the minuscules and lection aries 
were written on parchment, while paper was employed largely 
in the making of the later lectionaries and printed texts of 
the New Testament. 

Section T. Papyrus 

Papyrus ("from ndnvpog, stalk) was a reed cultivated exten- 
sively in the delta of the Nile, and from about the time of the 
twenty-sixth dynasty (B. C. 664-525) it became a most impor- 
tant article of commerce. " Its use increased with surprising 
rapidity in consequence of the successful expeditions of 
Alexander the Great, introducing Greek culture into Asia 
and Egypt. In all Hellenic states writing was now pursued 
with the greatest zeal, and everywhere on papyrus." 1 It has 

!Ebers, Georg, "The Writing Material of Antiquity," Cosmopolitan, Novem- 
ber, 1893. 

61 



62 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

now disappeared from its ancient Lome, but is found in 
Abyssinia and Nubia, and various parts of Sicily, especially 
in the vicinity of ancient Syracuse. Papyrus may also be 
studied in various botanical gardens and public parks in 
Europe and America. The plant is crowned with a grace- 
ful tuft of foliage, the stem is triangular and tapering in 
form, averaging three to six inches in diameter. At maturity 
it stands seven or eight feet high. Theophrastus, the suc- 
cessor of Aristotle, in charge of the Lyceum, in his history of 
plants (ITept <Pvra>v 'loropia, iv, 8, 3), describes the papyrus 
plant as growing along the Nile in w T ater about two cubits 
(three feet) in depth, with a root as thick as a man's arm, 
and of ten cubits (fifteen feet) or more in length. 

" The stalks (Trdnvpoc) are about four cubits (six feet) in 
height and are of triangular shape. . . . The roots are used 
for firewood and for making various articles of furniture. 
The stalks are put to many uses. Boats are made from them, 
and from the (3i(3Xo(;, or pith, sails, mats, clothing, coverings, 
and ropes. The [3i(3?iia, or sheets made from j3if3Aog, are 
most familiar to people of other lands. Above all, this plant 
is useful as a means of subsistence, since the inhabitants chew 
it either raw, boiled, or roasted, drawing the juice and re- 
jecting the fiber." 2 It was also used in the construction of 
light skiffs suitable for navigating the shallows of the Nile, 
and is doubtless referred to in Isaiah (xviii, 2), " vessels of bul- 
rushes (papyrus, Rev. Yer.) upon the waters," and in Exodus 
(ii, 3), "she took for him an ark of bulrushes" (papyrus, 
Rev. Yer., margin). 

Yet the younger Pliny, despite the fact that he evidently 
misunderstood and so misrepresented certain primary steps 
in the process, is the main source of our knowledge as to the 
manufacture of papyrus paper, oy %dprr\(; (compare 2 John 12). 
His chief error, as is now conceded on all hands, rests in the 

2 Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, article " Papyrus," 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 63 

fact that he considered the pith of the papyrus reed to be 
of a foliated nature, such as might be separated and unrolled 
by means of a needle. " The external part of the triangular 
stalk contains several very light and concentric skins, like the 
onion." 3 On the contrary, papyrus pith is of a cellular or 
"fibro-vascular" tissue, and was divided into strips by the 
use of a sharp knife. These strips (axidai) were cut as thin 
and as broad as possible and, according to some, as long only 
as the joints would permit. This reed, however, being 
without joints there were no such limits. Those taken from 
the center of the stalk were the best, being widest. They 
were arranged vertically, side by side as closely as possible, 
their edges touching but not overlapping, upon a table to the 
required width, thus forming a layer (o%eda). This was 
moistened with paste, and across it at right angles another 
layer was placed. The whole was then soaked with water 
and pressed or beaten with a hammer into a substance very 
similar to paper. The sheets (cre/Ufcc) thus formed were again 
pressed, trimmed into uniform sizes, dried carefully in the 
sun, and finally polished down with a shell or piece of ivory. 
The breadth, thinness, toughness, whiteness, and smoothness 
of the sheets determined their relative value, as well as that 
of the finished roll. Pliny names nine different varieties of 
papyrus paper as known in his time. 4 

The roll (rdfioq or KvXivdpoq) was formed by skillfully past- 
ing together a number of sheets at their lateral edges, thus 
forming a continuous strip whose right or face surface, ac- 
cording to Professor Wilken, invariably presented the lines 
of the fiber as running parallel with the length of the roll. 
" The page of the leaf on which the fibers run vertically is the 
reverse side. That which is written on the reverse side may 
either be the end of the writing, for which there was insuf- 



3 " La Flore Pharonique," V. Loret. See Cosmopolitan, November, 1893. 

4 Pliny, Historia Natura, xiii, 71-83. Compare note 2, above. 



64 THE CANON. TEXT. AND MANUSCRIPTS 

ficient space on the principal page, or it may be a later addi- 
tion. Thousands of papyri have confirmed this observation." 5 

It follows that in cases where a papyrus document is in- 
scribed on both sides the writing on the face or horizontal 
side is the older ; so that if the date of the writing on the re- 
verse or vertical side can be determined it may serve to 
settle, in a measure, the epoch of the original document, and 
vice versa. 

The first sheet of a roll (nporonoXXov) being on the outside 
and most subject to wear was of the best quality, while the 
last {EOxaroKoXXtov) was generally inferior. The average 
length of a roll, according to Birt, was thirty-nine feet, and 
according to Thompson twenty sheets, although there are 
Egyptian papyri extant as long as one hundred and forty 
feet. The inner end of the roll was fastened to a roller 
(o^aAoc) tipped with a simple button or ivory horn (Kepaq), 
while the left or outer end was sometimes glued to a similar 
strip, either of wood or papyrus, for its better protection and 
handling. The top and bottom edges were smoothed with 
pumice stone and frequently stained, while the reverse side 
of the roll itself was often rubbed with cedar oil to preserve 
it from worms and moths. The title of the book was at- 
tached in the form of a parchment label (oiTrvflog or oiXXvfiog) 
to the top edge of the inner sheet, and was thus easily exam- 
ined without removing the roll from its leathern cover 
(dupdepa or (paLvoXrjg). The chest or box in which rolls were 
kept was known as the klott) or ftipuTog.* 

Section II. Parchment 
The use of parchment, in a more or less crude state, prob- 
ably antedated that of papyrus, but its extensive manufacture 
and employment for literary purposes is usually traced to 

5 Ebers, Georg. See Cosmopolitan, November, 1893. 

e Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Paleeografohy, p. 3P. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 65 

the rivalry which sprang up between Eumenes II, King of 
Pergamura (197-159 B. C), and the contemporary King 
of Egypt, Ptolemy Epiphanes. The account as given by 
Pliny, who quotes his predecessor Yarro, narrates that 
Epiphanes desired out of jealousy to embarrass the project 
of Eumenes, who w r as a great book gatherer, in collecting a 
library at Pergamum larger, if possible, than that at Alex- 
andria. He therefore forbade the sale of papyrus to his rival, 
and thereby caused the rein traduction and improvement of 
the skins of animals for bookmaking. 7 Hence arose the 
term ixEpya\ir\vf\^ while \ie\i$pava (jiaXLora rdq iiepLfipavaq, 2 Tim. 
iv, 13), under Latin influence, came to be used as synonymous 
with the earlier terms fepua and dicpdepa. 

The word au\ianov, often met with, properly had reference 
to the contents of a document, to ou\xaTiov being a manuscript 
capable of containing an entire work or corpus. 

Despite the fact that Pliny ascribes the invention of parch- 
ment to Eumenes, the records show that its use had been 
known to the Ionians for centuries, though it had been dis- 
placed by papyrus in Greece and Asia Minor, as well as in 
Egypt itself. In the latter country the use of skins was 
known as early as the time of Cheops. There is in the Brit- 
ish Museum a ritual roll of white leather which the librarian 
claims " may be dated about the year 2000 B. C." The He- 
brews have always followed the custom of using parchment, 
and clo so in their synagogue rolls to the present day. The 
same custom, moreover, prevailed among the ancient Persians, 
as is shown by the statement of Diodorus II, 32 (t-« t&v 
fiaaiXcKGJv dicpdepcjv, ev acq ol Uepoai rag ixaXaiaq irpd^ecg elxov 
avvrerayiiEvaq) . 8 

During the early Christian centuries, however, papyrus 
was again almost universally employed throughout the Med- 

7 Pliny, Historia Nation, xiii, 120-170. 

8 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography, p. 35. 



66 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

iterranean countries, its own inexpensiveness and the spirit 
of conservatism possibly conducing to its wide popularity. 
Sir E. M. Thompson says, " it was particularly the influence 
of the Christian Church that eventually carried vellum into 
the front rank of writing materials and in the end displaced 
papyrus. As papyrus had been the principal material for 
receiving the thoughts of the pagan world, vellum was to be 
the great medium for conveying to mankind the literature 
of the new religion." 9 But the intrinsic superiority of 
parchment to papyrus must have been no small element in 
determining its final rank. Its obvious durability as con- 
trasted with the fragile nature of papyrus ; the fact that both 
sides present equally good surfaces for writing, which was 
not the case with papyrus ; that erasure could be effected 
without difficulty, making it possible to use the same parch- 
ment repeatedly, a process scarcely possible with papyrus ; 
together with the fact that it could be cut and bound up in 
the convenient codex (revxog) form, after the manner of the 
two, three, and more leaved tablets (dinTvxa, rplnrvxa, 
ttoXvtttvxo), a treatment of which again papyrus was not easily 
susceptible, and finally, the advantage of greater economy in 
the matter of space, since more words could be clearly writ- 
ten in a line of the same length, and vastly more lines could 
be committed to the same expanse of surface, all played a 
practical part in the final selection of the fitter material. By 
the end of the third century, both in the Christian and 
pagan world, parchment had become the favorite material 
for receiving formal literature. When the emperor Con- 
stantine wished to supply the churches of his new capital 
with copies of the Bible, Ensebius states that he ordered 
him, the bishop at that time of Caesarea, to prepare fifty 
copies on parchment (nEvrijuovra GG)fidrta ev difydepaig). 10 

9 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography \ p. 37. 

10 Eusebius, Life of Constantine, iv, 36. Compare Thompson, ibid. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 67 

Skins of goats, sheep, calves, pigs, asses, and antelopes were 
used in the manufacture of parchment. The term vellum, 
often used without discrimination, properly refers to the 
finer qualities, while the ordinary term parchment generally 
designates the coarser varieties. 

The more ancient manuscripts are the finest, being thinner 
and whiter, as well as more smooth and glossy, than those of 
later times, which were usually coarser grained and frequently 
much discolored. Codex Sinaiticus is of the finest skins of 
antelopes, the leaves being so large that a single animal 
would furnish only two. 11 Codex Yaticanus is also done on 
a very superior quality of vellum. 

In the preparation of the skins for writing, the points 
of chief importance were that all traces both of hair and 
flesh be removed and that they be evenly stretched, dried, 
and filled. In the East the custom prevailed of sizing, 
with unslacked lime, while slacked lime, chalk, and in some 
cases brimstone were employed in the West. Holes, unless 
quite small, were skillfully patched. The distinction be- 
tween the inner and outer side of the skin rarely disap- 
peared, even under the most careful treatment, the hair 
side being perceptibly the darker, and showing, in places, 
the points at the roots of the hair. It also took and retained 
the ink better than the flesh side, which, on the other hand, 
was lighter in color and more uniformly smooth. 

Section III. Paper 
Writing paper was introduced into the West by the Arabs 
early in the eighth century. It had long been known in 
China and the middle East, but not until the capture of Samar- 
kand in Turkestan (704 A. D.) does it appear to have been 
known in Syria or Egypt. The name by which papyrus had 

11 Scrivener, F. H. A.., Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, vol. i, 
p. 23. 



68 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

been known, x^P rr l^i came to be applied to paper, and being 
made of vegetable fiber it was also called %vXox&priov and 
gvXoTEVfcrov. From the considerable quantities which were 
manufactured at Damascus it became widely known in later 
times as^a/cmyc La\iaanr\v7\. Its name, %dprr\q fioiifiviavoc, arose 
from the supposition that it was made of cotton fiber, but 
according to recent researches by which many early samples 
have been analyzed it is found that hemp or flax was more 
frequently used than cotton, if indeed unmixed cotton were 
ever employed. Another widely received error is that which 
distinguishes oriental paper, as being cotton, from western oi- 
lmen paper. A more accurate distinction is based on the 
watermarks which are found in European paper, whereas 
they are unknown in the East. The manufacture of paper 
in Europe began under the Moors in Spain, where it was 
called "pergameno de panno," parchment of cloth, as dis- 
tinguished from "pergameno de cuero," or parchment of 
skin. 12 It is interesting to note that the first European coun- 
try to manufacture paper should also be the birthplace of 
the first printed Greek Testament, and that Xativa Valencia, 
Toledo, the city where it was first manufactured, was the seat 
of the bishopric of Cardinal Ximenes. 

The Arabs also introduced it into Sicily, and from thence 
it soon crossed to the Italian peninsula and is known to have 
been an article of export from Genoa as early as 1235, and 
as manufactured at Padua, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan. 
and other Italian cities in the following century. 

The striking similarity of early European paper to parch- 
ment has led to many mistakes on the part of palaeographers, 
perhaps the most curious of which concerns the celebrated 
fragments of the Gospel of Mark now preserved in Venice. 
The Benedictine monks, in whose monastery they are kept, 
declared they were written on bark ; Montfaucon, that they 

12 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Paleography, p. 44. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 69 

were written on papyrus ; MatTei, that they were written on 
cotton paper, while the microscope reveals that they were, 
in reality, written upon parchment. 13 

. Paper did not come into general use throughout Europe 
until the second half of the fourteenth century, but by the 
time that printing with movable types had become established 
paper had almost entirely displaced the use of parchment. 
Perhaps the best known example of the use of paper in a 
biblical manuscript is that of the Codex Leicestrensis, " com- 
posed of a mixture of inferior vellum and worse paper reg- 
ularly arranged in the proportion of two parchment to three 
paper leaves, recurring alternately throughout the whole 
volume." 14 

13 Encyclopedia Britannica, article "Paper." 

14 Scrivener, F. H. A., Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, vol. i, 
p. 24. 



J 



70 , THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 



CHAPTER II 

The Instruments with which the Manuscripts were Written 

Section I. Pens 

Foe writing upon papyrus the instrument commonly used 
was the hollow reed pen (icdhafiog, 3 John 13). It was cut to 
a point and split like a quill even in the earliest times. 

A fine pointed brush (itovdiXiov) was not infrequently used, 
especially in Egypt, both for writing and illuminating. 

Other names for reed pens are oxolvoq and dova% ypacpEvg. 1 * 

For parchment or vellum pens both of reed and of metal 
were early used ; quills, being first mentioned by Bishop 
Isidorus, of Seville (560-636 A. D.), ''cannot have been 
known to the classic writers." 16 

Specimens of silver and bronze pens, almost identical in 
shape with those now used, yet of a single piece with the 
handle, are being constantly discovered in both Greek and 
Roman tombs of the period immediately before and after 
the Christian ej)och. 

Section II. Inks 
Ordinary black ink, ypatyuidv fieXav or \le\clviov, was made 
of vegetable soot, mixed with a gummy medium and then 
molded into shape and dried like " India ink." It thus 
required to be rubbed up freshly with water when used ; a 
menial task, to fieXav rpiPov, which young ^Eschines was 
accustomed to perform in his father's school. 17 

15 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography, p. 49. 

16 Johnston, H. W., Latin Manuscripts, p. 17. Compare Thompson's Hand- 
book, p. 50; also, Middleton, J. H., Illuminated Marmscripts, p. 30. 

17 Demosthenes, De Corona. Compare Middleton's Illuminated Manuscripts, 

p. 28. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 71 

A more lasting ink was in vogue during the first Christian 
century, as was shown by its discovery, still in a liquid state, 
at Pompeii and in use upon the Herculaneum rolls. 18 This 
was made much as the best writing fluid is to-day, with the 
use of nutgalls, sulphate of iron, and gum. The price of 
ink, presumably of the former kind, in Diocletian's edict 
ILept ttaka\LU)v nal fieXaviov, was fixed at twelve small copper 
coins per pound, while that of reed pens varied widely with 
their quality. 19 

Red ink, fieXdviov kokklvov, was early and commonly used, 
both on papyrus and parchment, in headings, first lines, titles, 
and marginal notes ; hence the term rubrics. The more ex- 
pensive vermilion ink, iifkroq^ was not ordinarily employed, 
the far cheaper red ochre, \iiXroq Sivumg, being more com- 
monly used. 

A sort of royal purple ink, Kivvaftapiq, was employed in 
Byzantium and even earlier to a limited extent, on specially 
prized manuscripts, and the purple-stained vellum written in 
gold or silver was known as early as the third century, while 
of the sixth century notable examples of the Greek Gospels 
are Codex Rossanensis and Codex Cottonensis. 

Section III. Other Instruments 

For sharpening the reed and for scraping off errors and 
blots from parchment the knife, G\iiXr]^ yXv<pig, yXvcpavov, or 
yXvnr^p^ was used. 

While the ink was still fresh it could be removed from 
papyrus with a sponge. After the copy was thoroughly dried, 
the writing on papyrus remained, as a rule, the texture of 
the roll not permitting the use of a knife for its erasure. 

The case in which the reeds, brushes, and pens were kept 
was the \iaXa\iiq or aaXa\ioBr\Kr\. 

18 Madan, F., Books in Manuscript, p. 16. 

19 Middleton, J. II., Illuminated Manuscripts, etc., pp. 28, 30. 



72 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

In Egypt, combined brush cases and palettes have been 
found consisting of " long slips of wood, partly hollowed to 
hold the brushes and with two cuplike sinkings at one end 
for the writer to rub up his cakes of black and red ink." 20 
They Avere also made of bronze. 

For fluid inks bronze cylinders, fieXavdox?] , fieXavdoxov ■, 
{isXavdoxeZov, single or double, were used, each with a lid 
which was often pierced with a small hole for the insertion 
of the pen. The inkhorn was widely used in later and 
mediaeval times. 

As the horizontal fibrous lines of the material were dis- 
tinctly visible on the right or face side of papyrus, ruling was 
not generally necessary. A circular piece of lead, nvuXorepi)^ 
(jl6mI35oc, Tpoxosig ^6ali36oc, KVK/,oii6?a[36og, was, however, occa- 
sionally used for ruling papyrus. 21 For parchment the ruler 
was called the icavwv. 

The dividers or compasses, 6taj3d~7]g, were used for spacing 
the lines, and the bodkin, or orvXoq, for drawing them in 
connection with the ruler. 

The Greek lead pencil, {i6Xvj3dog, was formed by sharpen- 
ing a piece of graphite or lead to a point. 

20 Middleton, J. H., Illuminated Manuscripts, etc., p. 30. 

21 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Pedceography, p. 53. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 73 



CHAPTER III 

The Forms in which the Manuscripts are Preserved 

Section I. The Boll 

It has already appeared (p. 63) that papyrus manuscripts 
took most readily the roll form. The only additional facts 
to be noted are that it engaged both hands to manipulate 
the roll in reading, the right unrolling, elXelv, eXLooecv, Zi-eXelv, 
aveXiooeiv, while the left rolled up, and that when the read- 
ing was done it was necessary to roll the document back 
tightly upon the dficfraXoc, the reader " holding the roll be- 
neath his chin and turning with both hands." 22 

The writing was done, as a rule, in parallel columns, at 
right angles with the length of the roll, of lines averaging 
thirty-eight letters, so that in reading seven or eight columns 
were ordinarily exposed to the reader's eye. 

As some of the earliest codices upon parchment are writ- 
ten in narrow columns, three or four to the page, so that 
when open to the reader they presented six or eight col- 
umns respectively to view, it has been thought, other things 
being equal, that the codices having the larger number of 
columns to the page possess the greater antiquity, the fashion 
having risen in imitation of the older papyrus rolls. Thus Co- 
dex Sinaiticus and a beautiful exemplar of a Psalter mentioned 
by Dr. Scrivener have four columns on a page ; 23 while Codex 
Vaticanus, the Milan fragment of Genesis, two copies of the 
Samaritan Pentateuch at Nablous, the last part of Evan. 429, 
and a number of other Hebrew, Greek, and Latin manuscripts 
are arranged in three columns. 24 Codex Alexandrinus, of 

22 Johnston, H. W., Latin Manuscripts, p. 19. 

2 3 Scrivener, F. H. A., Introduction, vol. i, p. 28, note. u Ibid. 



74 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

the sixth century, has two columns to the page, as well as num- 
berless minor codices for the next thousand years ; and even 
in printed works down to the present century the custom 
has prevailed, especially, it would seem, in the printing of 
Bibles. 

Section II. The Codex 

The codex, or book of parchment, was far less simple in its 
construction than the papyrus roll. 

The structural unit of the codex, from the earliest times, 
has been the quire of four sheets, rerpdg or rerpdSwv. which 
when folded once made eight leaves or sixteen pages. Per- 
haps the most notable exception to this form is that of Codex 
Vaticanus, which is made up of quires of five sheets or ten 
leaves and twenty pages. There are also examples of quires 
of three sheets and a few sporadic cases ranging as high as 
ten sheets to the quire. 

Great care was exercised in making up the quires that the 
flesh and hair side of the parchment should not face one 
another. The flesh side presenting, as we have seen, the 
lighter and fairer surface, the first sheet in Greek manu- 
scripts was, as a rule, laid flesh side down. This would 
bring the darker, hair side uppermost, and the second sheet 
was therefore placed with the hair side down, the third sheet 
as the first, and the fourth as the second. Thus, when the 
quires were bound up, no matter where the book was opened, 
the colors of every two adjacent pages would be alike. - The 
practical value of bearing in mind this rule is apparent not 
only in the process of rearranging a disordered manuscript, 
but in detecting, at a glance, the loss of a sheet from one 
otherwise apparently perfect. 

In the Greek Codex Alexandrinus and in most Latin 
manuscripts this rule is modified by uniformly beginning 
the quires with the hair side of the skin outermost. 

Ruling was necessaiw in the case of parchment, and was 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 75 

done before the sheets were made up into quires, and gener- 
ally on the hair side of the skin only, as the pressure of the 
bodkin was sufficient to make the lines appear on the reverse 
side ; indeed, to save the trouble of repeated measurements, 
two or more sheets were often laid the one upon the other 
and ruled together. As the sheets were not yet broken into 
pages the horizontal ruling ran clear across them, thus 
making the page lines uniform in number and spacing. 
Vertical lines were also drawn to confine the columns of 
writing, laterally. 

Section III. Palimpsests 

After the fall of Rome the expense of procuring vellum 
and the decline of literary interest in previous authors led 
to the custom of washing or scraping off the original writing 
from many choice books and using their pages anew. Such 
a manuscript was called a palimpsest, naXifiiprjOTog, and several 
authentic cases are extant where this process was repeated, 
making what is called a double palimpsest. 

So common did this custom become in the Eastern empire 
that the Greek Church was compelled at the end of the 
seventh century to forbid such destruction of manuscripts of 
the Scriptures or of the Church fathers, imperfect or injured 
volumes excepted. 25 

No less than eight valuable and ancient uncials of the 
New Testament are palimpsests, the most notable being 
Codex Ephraemi, of the National Library in Paris. 

26 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography ; p. 76. 



76 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 



CHAPTER IV 
The Methods of Marking and Measuring; the Manuscripts 

Section I. Punctuation 

In the making of early uncial manuscripts the custom 
commonly prevailed of writing a continuous text, there being 
neither distinction of words nor separation of sentences. 
A method of distinguishing paragraphs, however, is found 
in early manuscripts, both on papyrus and parchment. A 
dividing stroke or dash ( — ), called napdypacfiog, was used to 
mark the termination of paragraphs, being inserted, as a 
rule, at the beginning of the following line, the text itself 
remaining continuous, or in some cases broken only by a 
short space between paragraphs. The SlttXtj or wedge >, and 
Kopovig or full stop 7, were also frequently used as paragraph 
marks. 

These methods of marking paragraphs were afterward dis- 
placed by the fashion of enlarging and projecting beyond 
the margin the first letter of the next full line following the 
break, and this irrespective of its being an initial letter or 
not. This system prevails in Codex Alexandrinus. The 
same Codex also illustrates the usage of two other marks in 
punctuation of biblical texts, namely, the ony/nr] reXeia or 
high point, placed on the level with the top of the letters 
to mark the full stop or period, and the Griyfn) \iiar\^ placed 
opposite the middle line of the letter and equivalent to a 
slight stop or comma. The v-noanyar], a point on the low T er 
level of the line to signify a pause midway between these two 
and equivalent to a semicolon, was adopted a little later. Both 
Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus make occasional use 
of the short space and of the oriy\ir\ reXela to mark a pause in 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 77 

the sense, while Codex Basiliensis is a good example of the 
use of all three points named. To mark the end of a para- 
graph or chapter the custom widely prevailed of using the 
napdypa(j)og in combination with two or more dots (:, :-, .\). 26 

The Greek mark of interrogation, or semicolon, first came 
into vogue at the end of the eighth century, and the comma 
used to mark a slight pause, a little later. 

The comma placed above a letter in the character of the 
apostrophe occurs in the oldest uncials, especially after 
proper names, and in Codex Bezse and some others it as- 
sumes the shape of the Sltt^tj or wedge, rather than that of 
the comma. 27 

Section II. Accents and Breathings 

The Greek system of accents, punctuation, and breathings 
is attributed to the invention of Aristophanes of Byzantium, 
who flourished during the latter half of the third century, as 
a part of his Ae/ca TrpoocpStaL. 

The Greek name for accents was rovoi, and they were 
divided into the grave, (3apela, or ordinary tone ; the acute, 
6£e?a, or rising voice, and the circumflex, d%v!3apela or 
nepio7TG)iJ,6V7] y which combined both a rise and fall or slide of 
the voice. 

Although accents w r ere not applied with systematic accu- 
racy to Greek texts before the seventh century, many of our 
earliest New Testament manuscripts have been embellished 
with them by scribes since that time, and several cases of 
their introduction at first hand are preserved on early 
papyrus as well as parchment manuscripts. 

As the function of accents, however, is not such as to 
finally determine questions of interpretation, but rather to 
assist the public reader, only slight critical assistance can be 

26 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Buheography ', p. TO. 

27 Scrivener, F. H. A., Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, vol. i, 
p. 49. 



78 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

looked for from this source. Of breathings, nvsv^aTa, more 
can be expected, since the rough breathing, in particular, is 
an essential portion of the language and represents the loss 
of a real letter. 28 The entire controversy as to the standing 
of avrov and its cognates in the "New Testament is an ex- 
ample in point. 29 

The original aspirate H is reflected in the sign of the 
rough breathing h and of the smooth breathing H respect- 
ively, still preserved in some of the old manuscripts. These 
forms gradually became simplified into l and j , and finally 
took the curved shape of later usage, that is, f and '. 

Section III. Abbreviations and Contractions 
These terms are used in the sense employed by Sir E. M. 
Thompson : the former, " for the shortening of a word by 
suppressing its termination," and the latter "for the shorten- 
ing of a word by omitting letters from the body." 30 

In the oldest Greek papyri abbreviation is quite common, 
so that the tendency to avoid the labor of rewriting words of 
frequent occurrence existed long before the expense either 
of the labor or the material employed brought the custom 
into universal use. 

In sacred manuscripts of the earliest date, the various 
names and titles of the Deity, as well as those of familiar 
places and household use, were shortened by the omission 
of the middle letters and the use of a horizontal stroke 
above the word. For example, 6C stands for 0e6c, XC for 
XpiGTog, KG for Kvpiog, IC for lijaovg, TC for 'Ttog, IIP for 
ndrrjp, MP for Mtjttjp, CHP for Icorrjp, UNA for Uvevfia, AAA 
for kavid, IHA for 'iGparjX, etc. 

28 Scrivener, F. H. A., Introduction to the Criticism of the Jfew Testament, vol. i, 
p. 46. 

29 Home, T. H., Introduction to the Holy Scriptures, vol. iv, p. 33. 

30 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography, p. 86, note. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 79 

On the other hand, examples of real abbreviation are Tw 
for 'loydvvrjg, Ao for Aovftdg, and the like. 

The omission of v at the end of a line was uniformly in- 
dicated by a straight stroke over the last remaining letter. 

Section IV. Stichometby 

The custom of measuring manuscripts, both of prose and 
poetry, by the use of the eiroq or orixoq, the average hexameter 
line, prevailed from the earliest period of Greek literature. 

The normal use of the term orixog makes it refer to the 
number of syllables rather than the number either of words 
or letters in the line, although there is evidence that the 
process stands midway between "letter-by-letter writing" 
and " a transcription word-by-word," 31 

The title ari'xog fipofitcog and enog eijdjierpov point in the same 
direction. This stichometric device was employed in deter- 
mining the sale price of works, the wage scale of copyists, 
and the location of particular passages. 

By writing a manuscript ortx^p^g and counting and record- 
ing the number of lines, both the market price of the copy 
and the wage of the copyist could be gauged. A standard 
therebj r being set and the number of orixoi registered, " sub- 
sequent copies could be made in any form at the pleasure of 
the scribe, who need only enter the ascertained number of 
lines at the end of his work. Thus in practice we find pa- 
pyri and early vellum manuscripts written in narrow columns, 
the lines of which by no means correspond in length with the 
regulation orixoi, but which were more easily read without 
tiring the eye." 32 

From the tariff contained in the edict of Diocletian Dr. J. 
Rendel Harris calculates the cost of production of the com- 
plete volume of which Codex Sinaiticus forms a part at 

31 Harris, J. Kendel, Stichometry, p. 9. 

32 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography, p. 80. 
3 



80 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

approximately one hundred and eighty dollars, the cost of 
vellum being included. 33 

Besides recording the number of orixoi contained in a 
work at the end of the book, the custom appears to have pre- 
vailed among librarians, as at Alexandria, of entering the 
number of gt'lxol along with the title in their catalogues. 

They also marked the number of lines at every fiftieth or 
hundredth line, in their copy of the book for the purpose 
ostensibly of literary reference. 34 

33 Harris, J. Renclel, Stichometry, p. 27. 

34 Johnston, H. W., Latin Manuscripts, p. 32. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 



CHAPTER V 

The Origin and Forms of the Greek Alphabet 

Section I. Origin 

The Latin alphabet is the literary alphabet of modern 
Christendom and divides with the Arabic any claim to cos- 
mopolitan extension, 35 while its present rapid diffusion 
promises to make it the ultimate literary vehicle of man- 
kind. The Latin is the direct descendant of the old Attic 
or Chalcidian type of the Greek alphabet which was brought 
to Italy as early as the eighth or ninth century B. C. 
through the colony of Cumae, which tradition has named 
as the earliest Greek settlement in the Italian peninsula. 36 

The Greek alphabet was derived from the primitive 
Phoenician, as the term Qoiviicrjia ypd/nfiara, the ancient name 
of Greek letters implies, although there are also traces of a 
certain Aramaean influence, as appears from the names of the 
letters themselves. It will be noticed that the names of the 
Greek letters commonly end in the final vowel called the 
" Emphatic Aleph," and which Dr. Isaac Taylor derives from 
the post-fixed article characteristic of the Aramaean idiom,, 
Otherwise the Greek names are manifestly descended from 
their Semitic prototypes, Alpha from Aleph, Beta from Beth, 
and so on. In either case the origin of the Greek alphabet 
as clearly Semitic is now abundantly proved by the evidence 
of epigraphic and numismatic material. A peculiar indica- 
tion of the probable dependence of Greek upon Phoenician 
letters is the fact that the earliest Greek inscriptions are 
written after the Semitic fashion, from right to left. Then 

35 Taylor, Isaac, The History of the Alphabet, vol. ii, p. 136. 

36 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography, p. 10. 



82 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

followed a period when the lines proceed alternately from 
right to left and from left to right, as an oriental ox turns 
back and forth in plowing a field. This was called fiovorpo- 
(prjdbv or plow-wise writing. Finally about the sixth century 
B. C. the more convenient practice of writing all the lines 
from left to right became generally prevalent. 

The further question of the source of the Phoenician or 
Semitic alphabet is one that has been variously answered, 
Dr. Eduard Meyer tracing it back to that of the Hittites; 
Dr. Hoinmel, and Dr. Deecke, to the cuneiform Assyrian, 
while many eminent scholars agree that the hieratic Egyp- 
tian is more probably its immediate predecessor. Even the 
hieroglyphic cartouche of King Sent or Send, of the second 
dynasty, is made up of three capital consonants in practically 
the same form that they have kept in the Phoenician, Greek, 
Latin, and English alphabets during the sixty-five and more 
centuries since they were inscribed, while the cursive charac- 
ters found in the hieratic document known as the Papyrus 
Prisse, and dating perhaps two thousand years later, furnish 
abundant evidence for the contention of those who trace the 
Semitic alphabet to Egypt. Thus the prolific Nile valley 
has produced not only the papyrus roll and the pen, but the 
letters as well of classic and of Christian civilization. 

Section II. Capitals 
The classification of the various forms of the letters in 
Greek manuscripts must, in the nature of the case, be arbit- 
rary, since capital, uncial, minuscule, and cursive, mingle and 
interchange with true literary inconsistency in documents 
of the same period and even in those proceeding from the 
hand of the same scribe. Moreover the terminology of the 
subject has become singularly involved, the early and widely 
received division of manuscripts into uncial and cursive 
being peculiarly faulty, both because the terms themselves 
are in no sense coordinate and because there exists from the 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 83 

earliest times a script which may be described as a cursive- 
uncial, on the one hand, and an archaic, carefully executed 
minuscule script, by no means cursive in character, on the 
other. It is, of course, true that no important manuscript 
of the New Testament is written either in a distinctively 
capital or a distinctively cursive hand. 

Capitals were invented and at first largely employed for 
the inscription of brief data upon hard substances, as rock, 
brick, pottery, coins, metals, ivory, shell, and horn. Their 
forms, therefore, are angular and comparatively stable and 
are often called lapidary forms. These capital letters are 
the direct source of the early uncial or book hands, and have 
themselves continued to be used in their most archaic shapes, 
in titles and superscriptions down to the present time. The 
inscription here reproduced from the Jerusalem Stele, a 
tablet which is supposed to have stood as a warning upon the 
barrier or fence dividing the inner court from the court of 
the Gentiles, in the Herodian Temple, furnishes interesting 
illustration of the lapidary Greek alphabet of New Testament 
times. 



MHOENAAAAOrENHHEnO 
PEYEZ0A1EN TOZ TOYOE 
PITOEPONTPY^AKTOYKAJ 
OEPIBQAOYOIAANAH 
#©HEAYTniA!TIOEEr 
>EZ 



$4 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

Section III. Uncials 

We have in Plates II to VII inclusive facsimiles of the 
chief uncial types of New Testament manuscripts. These 
are evidently the work of professional scribes and probably 
illustrate the best period of uncial activity as far as the 
-Scriptures are concerned, being fully equal to the best 
manuscripts of classic Greek writers, whether contemporary 
or otherwise. It is often remarked that Homer in the Greek 
world, Virgil in the Latin world and the Bible in the world 
of Christian literature were published with a uniformity of 
care and elegance to which no other works could aspire, in- 
deed, so great was the respect of ancient copyists for these 
three classics that there are comparatively few manuscripts 
inown of them written in a strictly cursive character. 

" The term uncial, which dates from the time of St. 
Jerome, . . . arose out of a misconception, uncial letters 
not being necessarily so very large and rarely an inch in 
height, as the name implies. It denotes a majuscule script in 
which the letters are not so square or so upright as in the 
lapidary alphabets. The forms are somewhat rounded and 
have usually a slight inclination of the vertical strokes, the 
difference being mainly due to the nature of the writing 
material — papyrus or parchment instead of stone or metal." 37 

There is considerable difference again as between the 
uncials upon papyrus and those upon parchment. Although 
the line of descent and dependence of the latter is directly 
traceable to the former, and although " the general result of 
the progress of any form of writing through a number of 
centuries is decadence and not improvement," yet, " in the 
case of the uncial writing of the early codices there is im- 
provement and not decadence." This, as Dr. Thompson 
suggests, is doubtless chiefly due to the change of material, 

37 Taylor, Isaac, The History of the Alphabet, vol. ii, p. 148. 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 85 

the superior surface of the vellum furnishing the scribe 
" greater scope for displaying his skill " than did that of 
papyrus. So that u there appears to have been a period of 
renaissance with the general introduction of vellum as the 
ordinary writing material/' 38 

The Oxyrhynchus papyrus (plate II), although it is 
written in codex, and not roll form, and utilizes the verso as 
well as the recto side of the sheet, and although it contains a 
few conventional word contractions, as IC (line 5), 0T (line 
8), ITPA (line 11) and ANftN (line 19) and the peculiar > 
shaped character to fill out the lengths of the shorter lines 
(for example, lines 3, 10, 17 and 18), nevertheless probably 
belongs to the earlier half of the second century and preserves 
a very pure type of the so-called Koman uncial hand of that 
period. 39 

This papyrus fragment is of so much higher antiquity, as 
well as palseographical value, to that of the first chapter of 
Matthew, found at the same time and place, that it is in- 
serted in preference to the latter despite the fact that it can- 
not be strictly classed as canonical Scripture.- The simplicity, 
dignity, and regularity of this hand when compared with the 
great vellum uncials following confirms the contention of 
Dr. Kenyon that the palaeography of Greek papyri anticipated 
in its development the subsequent history of writing upon 
vellum, so that the corresponding styles of writing on the 
two materials are not contemporary, but are separated by 
some centuries of time. 40 

The "five great uncials" on parchment which are illus- 
trated in plates III- VII have been so often and so fully 
discussed elsewhere that there remains little to suggest save 
that the student cultivate a very close acquaintance with them. 

38 Thompson, E. M., Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography ; p. 149. 

39 Grenfell and Hunt, Sayings of Our Lord, p. 6. 

40 Kenyon, F. C, The PaUeography of Greek Papyri, p. 89. 



86 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

Section IV. Minuscules 

Minuscule manuscripts of the JSTew Testament outnumber 
those in uncial hand twenty to one, and although they all 
date, in their extant form, later than the eighth century, yet 
the possibility is now generally recognized that they may, in 
some cases, reflect a text of as high antiquity as that preserved 
in the majority of uncials. Greater respect is now being 
paid to this class of manuscripts than in the days of Tregelles 
and the earlier text critics, and their careful collation is pro- 
ducing abundant material to warrant the labor involved. 

The minuscule is the most nearly perfect book hand that 
has ever been invented, combining the elements of legibility 
and dignity inherent in the literary uncial with those of grace 
and more rapid execution characteristic of the nonliterary 
cursive. 

As their name implies, the letters of this hand are some- 
what smaller in size than their predecessors, yet at the same 
time they show a marked tendency to extend themselves 
either above or below the normal line of the text as well as 
to reach out laterally, as in cursive writing, and join together 
by the use of ligatures. The twofold origin of the minuscule 
from a combination of the uncial and cursive hands is seen 
in the Table of Alphabets at the end of this chapter, where 
it will be noted that in nearly every case of the duplicate 
letters in the miniscule columns one, is clearly derived from 
the corresponding uncial and the other from the cursive 
form. Another interesting peculiarity of minuscule script is 
the fact that these diversely derived forms of the same letter 
are often found side by side upon the same page and even in 
the spelling of a single word. 

The perfection of Greek minuscule writing upon vellum 
was attained, according to Dr. Kenyon, in the tenth century, 
and continued, as a type for biblical scribes, fully three hun- 
dred years. It had been distinctly anticipated in the cursive 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 87 

hand prevailing in nonliterary papyri in Egypt as early as 
the seventh century, 41 and thus again, as in the case of the 
lineage of Greek uncial letters, we find the minuscules trac- 
ing their descent back to the land of the Nile. 

Of the eight New Testament minuscules in the Drew col- 
lection three may be classed as eleventh century and four as 
twelfth century manuscripts, while the latest is dated in the 
colophon of the scribe at the year 1366 and 1369, A. D. 
From this fact as well as from their facsimiles it will be seen 
that they belong as a whole to the earlier and better period 
of the minuscule art. 

As to contents, it is possibly worth noting that the three 
eleventh century documents (plates, X, XT, XII) are codices 
of the gospels, either in whole or in part; the four of the 
twelfth century (plates IX, XIII, XIY, XV) are sumptuous 
lectionaries of the gospels, and the last contains the Pauline 
epistles. For the study of the minuscule text of the gospels, 
therefore, this collection furnishes an apparatus not often ex- 
celled by single libraries even in Europe. 

41 Kenyon, F. C, The Palaeography of Greek Papyri, p. 125. Compare Wilcken, 
U., Tafeln zur aelteren Gfriechischen Palceog rapine, Vorwort. 



ObnCdtZc, 


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NOTES ON THE TABLE OF ALPHABETS 



From the Table of Alphabets it will be observed : 

1. That the complete number of letters in the capital columns of the 
Greek alphabet is twenty-seven, Fau or Digamma and San or Sampi 
and Koppa being found in the earlier writings, then gradually becom- 
ing obsolete in classic times, although throughout the period of Hel- 
lenistic and later Greek they still survived in the numerical system 
which required the full complement of twenty-seven letters. The need 
for this number arose from the fact that the alphabet was divided into 
three groups of nine letters each, the first doing duty for the units, the 
second for the tens, and the third for the hundreds. Thus a very 
simple system of notation for all numbers up to 999 was furnished, 
while at the same time three very important links in the development 
of Greek letters w T as preserved. 

2. That the lineal descent of the first twenty-two Greek letters from 
the Semitic alphabet is best appreciated by comparing columns one 
and two, in the latter of which the Greek letters are written from right 
to left, as they are found in the first epoch of the written language. 

3. That the Latin alphabet is even more restricted in its lineal de- 
pendence upon the Semitic than the Greek itself, all of its letters, if 
we accept the opinion of leading Latin authorities, that U, W, and Y, 
as well as F and V are finally traceable to waw, having descended 
from the original twenty-two of the Phoenicians. Moreover, in case 
we trace the Latin C to the Greek Sigma, and the Greek Sigma and 
Latin S to San or Sampi, and the Latin G to Gimel, as there appears 
reason to some for doing, there remains only the single Semitic letter 
Teth [the Greek Theta] which has not its living witness in the Latin 
alphabet of to-day. 

Probably the main reason for this remarkable similarity between the 
Latin and Phoenician letters is the acknowledged fact that the chief 
Greek colonies in Italy, namely, those which became the foundation ot 
Roman civilization, were founded by the Eubceans or Ohalcidians, who 
reflected in turn the Eastern or older forms of the Greek alphabet. 

89 



ADDITIONAL PLATES 



91 



, ■ '; 



! i 



. ; 



' : 






- • 



; 







| ? h ; | | { ;: ; ; P 



Plate IV. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus. 
93 





x< re A( Al it.) t u>n 

| . ANXDNf I Aj'AAtt) 

coyciNi M'YMM 
PIC t YNi AplAKAl 

rrvj iah t yhAi to 
fAK AyrtDNMXn 
i cocoyc inymk 

KAlt-.l I? HI t MONX 
At KAf K At !Alt A 
XOI It t t OAK N< 
Ki N t M t >y (f I t MAf 
"I ypioVsi AY'IOK'K 
[H JOH (ON((1 N O 
* TAW A€-ri APAACl>l 
YM At'"M H-M t-|'IMNI 
CMK M(i'( HI IAA 
\HC I ( I t AtM )! ICt: 
YAH Apy M I NCNt 
Kl N H PHCDpAl lAA 

ahch icoyi xpy 

MIC 6 C~VC t > I A AM 
I et AAAA'iQI I N A 
TOyriP< YMtPNJ- 
AAAOYN t N YMI* 
1. lAj'AAtl )t 1 At A 
'; AC A"4' 0< AA<L-A<|>* 

M < ( > A N A r ( ) N KA1 

1 1 M, }* TC K N O N K Al 
CM JAN AC I H< ON; 
I Al Tt-'KN AC I I |'r« 
N K'KA It) AN Altl> 

t x >yt i n ay 1 1 >y iy 
ct: -coc-m iroYMe. ' 

NQjyi l()i IXNT(J) 
A| Ai OONOMAM'T 
OX( YrU)M I N AM- 
"J C "AoC'Oy MOt CXI} 
t )I It.CMAH )IANA< 
AKOKtnt ifNtyMA' 
t"M I H IMOAII Af JH 

<J>t-yi C I XK K THN 
CMC PAN 

AMI IN FXfXOI toy 
H in oyMi fit At-: 

t ! I f ( 1 AC I tOApfM 

niK(-'(:9( ;? txt >.} it.) 
yc i< >ya n t > y c >y k< 

<0 INMAO I ! I I I t Y 



llt'fTONAIAAt KA 
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Plate V. Codex Sinaiticus. 
95 



Plate VI. Codex Vaticanus. 
97 



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Plate VII. Codex Alexandrinus. 



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',;, SES^assssaw^ 



Plate VIII. Codex Ephraemi. 
101 




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Plate IX. Codex Bezae. 
103 







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Plate X. Drew MS. I. 
105 



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Plate XI. Drew MS. II. 
107 




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Plate XII. Drew MS. III. 
109 



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Plate XIII. Drew MS. IV. 
Ill 




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Plate XIV. Drew MS. V. 
113 





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115 







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117 




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Plate XVII. Drew MS. IX. 
119 



NOTES ON PLATES 



Plate I. Frontispiece. Codex W 

The United States now has in her National Library (the Smithsonian) 
at the Capital one of the foremost uncial manuscripts of the Greek New 
Testament. From its permanent location it is known as the Washington 
Manuscript, and with its companion volumes of the Old Testament 
comprises the proudest possession in the line of biblical manuscripts to 
be found in all America. It contains a complete Codex of the Gospels, 
written in a slightly sloping but ancient hand, upon good vellum, in one 
column of thirty lines to the page, six by nine inches in size. By all the 
tests ordinarily given it belongs to the period of the earliest codices, 
possibly of the fourth century. Like Codex D, it has the order of the 
Gospels, Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, and contains an Apocryphal 
interpolation, of great interest, within the longer ending of Mark, for 
which no other Greek authority is known, though it is probably referred 
to by Saint Jerome. It has been published in Facsimile by Mr. C. L. 
Freer, of Detroit, who obtained it in Egypt in 1906, and is edited by 
Professor H. A. Sanders and printed by the University of Michigan, 
1911. The page here reproduced, by the kind permission of the pub- 
lisher, contains the text of Mark i, 1-7. 

Plate II. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus I 

This is a fragment of the oldest known manuscript of any part of the 
New Testament. It was found at the same time and place as the Logia 
described under Plate IV. Only part of a sheet, forming two leaves, was 
recovered, but it is done in an archaic hand only second in quality to the 
Logia, possessing the same kind of contractions and diacritical marks, 
and doubtless belongs to the period just succeeding, that is, the late 
third or early fourth century. The verso which is here given contains 
Matthew i, 1-9, 12. This, too, is now in the United States, and may be 
seen at the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Plate III. St. Luke 

This is a full-page illumination, reduced about one third, taken from 
a Manuscript Lectionary of the Gospels, No. IX of the Drew Collection 
of New Testament Minuscules. It portrays St. Luke, the author of the 
third Gospel, and faces the beginning of the lections from that evan- 

121 



122 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

gelist in the manuscript. The original is done in pigments of blue, 
brown, pink, red, and gold, and represents the apostle in the attitude 
of profound meditation while turning the leaves of a book. For a de- 
scription of the Lectionary, see under Plate XV J 

Plate IV. Papyrus Oxyrhyxches 

This plate is a slightly enlarged reproduction of the verso side of the 
notable papyrus fragment recovered, but a few years since, from the 
rubbish heaps near the Egyptian town of Behnesa, 120 miles south of 
Cairo, in the edge of the Libyan Desert. Oxyrlrynchus was the ancient 
name of the city as well as of the Nome of which it was the nourishing 
capital in Roman and early Christian times. 

The Papyrus was called by its discoverers, Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt, 
AOTTA IHCOY from the fact that it is made up of what purport to be 
sa} T ings of Jesus. There are upon both sides of the leaf what appear 
to be eight separate utterances of our Saviour, either in part or entire, 
three of which, perhaps as suggestive as any, may be read from this 
plate without difficulty. In so far as these sayings coincide at all with 
the spirit and letter of the teachings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, 
they undoubtedly reflect a tradition of those teachings belonging to 
the times immediately following the apostolic age. At the upper right- 
hand corner of the page will be seen the number I A, or eleven, which, 
both from the difference in the character of the hand and of the ink 
employed, is clearly a later addition. 

Pap}Ti are as yet comparatively rare in America. Outside of the 
valuable beginnings toward collections at the Universities of Chicago, 
Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins, perhaps the most noteworthy is 
found in the Abbott Collection of Egyptian Antiquities, at the rooms 
of the New York Historical Society. Here may be seen three consider- 
able fragments from Thebes written in Greek characters, and six 
from Sakkara in the Demotic; besides these there are three remarkable 
scrolls worthy of serious study: one is a Ritual of the Dead, twenty- 
three feet long, written in hieratic characters and illustrated freely 
with figures in outline; a second, also in the ancient hieratic, is thirty- 
six feet long, and in such perfect preservation that it does not require 
to be stretched upon paper, as nearly all iong papyrus rolls .are now 
mounted; while a third is another Ritual of the Dead, perfect both at 
its commencement and at the end, twenty-two feet long, and most 
beautifully written and illuminated. 

Plate V. Codex Sixaiticus, K 

A facsimile of folio vi, one fourth actual size, taken from the Drew 
Seminar}' copy of Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus, vol. i, Novum Testa- 
ment um, St. Petersburg, 1862. 

N is the most complete and one of the most ancient uncials of the 
entire Xew Testament, dating as early as the fourth century. It is 
also one of the very few manuscripts written with four columns to the 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 123 

page, the open book presenting eight columns of writing to the eye, 
which makes a "papyrus-like arrangement" suggesting the roll (see 
page 73) . It is written in large uncial hand on antelope skins of singular 
fineness, the pages being 133^x14% inches in size and containing forty- 
eight lines to the column. The text of the facsimile is that of Matt, x, 
17 to xi, 5. On the margin will be seen the so-called Ammonian Sections 
and Eusebian Canons, evidently not in the hand of the original scribe, 
though Teschendorf thought them by a contemporary, as also the note 
on Matt, x, 39, written below the third column. 

Plate VI. Codex Vatic anus, B 

This plate, about one quarter of the original page, is copied from 
the phototype facsimile of Codex Vaticanus, No. 1209, vol. iv, Novum 
Testamentum, folio 1352, Rome, 1889. Codex B is written with some- 
what greater accuracj^ than X, and by many is considered a little earlier 
in date. It is done on very fine, thin vellum and in small but clear 
and neat uncials, with three columns of forty-two lines to the page, 
which is nearly square, being 10x103^ inches in size. It is incomplete 
from Heb. ix, 14, on, lacking Philemon, the Pastoral epistles, and Reve- 
lation. The folio in the illustration contains John ii, 16 to hi, 17. 

Plate VII. Codex Alexandrinus, A 

This copy is made from the autotype facsimile of Codex Alexan- 
drinus issued by the British Museum in 1880. It is reduced a trifle 
more than one half the actual size, which is in quarto, 10^x12^ inches, 
with two columns of fifty lines each to the page. 

Codex A was the first of the great uncials to come into the hands of 
English scholars, being a gift of Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople, to Charles I, of England, in 1628. As this was seventeen years 
after the publication of the Authorized Version of the English Bible, 
it is important to note that none of the great English versions have 
been influenced directly by the readings of the most ancient uncials 
save that of the Revision of 1881-1884. 

The vellum of this codex is not quite as fine or well preserved as B, 
but the writing is done in a somewhat larger and more elegant hand, 
and although the text is devoid of accents or breathings, the presence 
of capital letters at first hand and the canons of Eusebius date it at 
least as late as the fifth century. Our facsimile presents folio 49, verso, 
from vol. iv, and contains the text of Luke vi, 42 b , to vii, 16 b . 

Plate VIII. Codex Ephraemi, C 

We have in Plate VI a reproduction of a folio, reduced one half, taken 
from the article on St. Ephraem in the Dictionnaire de la Bible of F. 
Vigouroux. The Scripture passage is Matt, xi, 17 to xii, 3. 

This is an average specimen page of the celebrated Codex Ephraem 
Syri rescriptus, which may be seen by any visitor at the National Library 



124 THE CANON, TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

in Paris. Its name rises from the fact that a Greek translation of some 
of the works of St. Ephraem, a Syrian Church Father, were written 
over the original Greek text of a very ancient and valuable copy of the 
Scriptures. The original belongs to the fifth century, and ranks in 
purity and antiquity with Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. It was not erased 
by the unknown hand of an ardent admirer of Ephraem until some 
seven centuries after it was first written, nor really restored to the Chris- 
tian world until seven centuries later still by the energy and patience of 
Tischendorf in 1841. Although this codex when first written probably 
contained the entire Bible, it has been so mutilated by the various 
hands through which it has passed that not more than two thirds of its 
original contents still remain. 

Plate IX. Codex Bez^, D 

This is reproduced at about one half the original size from a plate in 
Dictionnaire de la Bible, Vigouroux, F., Fascicule vi, page 1768. Codex 
D is a Greek-Latin manuscript, the Greek of the left-hand page being 
offset on the opposite page by a Latin translation done by the same 
hand. It is a large quarto, 10x8 inches in dimensions, containing most 
of the four Gospels and the Acts. The text is in square archaic uncials 
with one column of thirty-three lines to the page. It is without spacings, 
accents, or breathings, and dates at least from the early part of the 
sixth century. Our specimen folio contains the text of Luke vi, 1-10. 

Plate X. Drew Minuscule, I 

This is reproduced from Manuscript I of the Drew Seminary Collec- 
tion of New Testament Minuscules. It is classified in Dr. Gregory's 
Prolegomena, p. 669, as No. 371 in his Minuscule Codices of the Pauline 
Epistles. It is written on well-sized parchment 7^x11^ inches, in sin- 
gle column of twenty-three lines to the page, and consists of one hun- 
dred and three leaves. The last folio bears the signature of the scribe 
Joasaph and is dated 1366 and 1369. From the numbering of the quires, 
the first of which in the present state of the codex is signed i?=16, 
it is probable that the copy originally contained the Acts of the Apostles 
preceding Paul's epistles. It is also noteworthy that Hebrews follows 
the Pastoral epistles. The codex contains prologues, v-koBeoeiq, and has 
the avayvuG/iaTa or lection marks, vwoypa&ai or subscriptions, and otlxol. 
The facsimile contains the text of 2 Cor. i, 6-12, photographed from folio 
26, recto. 

Plate XL Drew Minuscule II 

This is a facsimile of folio 162, recto, of Manuscript II of the Drew 
Seminary Collection. It is a minuscule Lectionary of the Gospels, and 
stands as No. 301 in the Prolegomena, p. 728, of Dr. Gregory, who 
also dates it as of the twelfth century. It is written on 334 leaves of 
strong white parchment, 12^x8^8 inches, with two columns of nineteen 
lines to the page, and is furnished with musical accents in red. The 



OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 125 

first several leaves are badly mutilated, and not a few are lacking. Our 
specimen folio contains the text of Matt, xxiii, 11-15. 

Plate XII. Drew Minuscule III 

This is a minuscule of the four Gospels, Manuscript III of the Drew 
Seminary Collection, No. 667 in Dr. Gregory's Prolegomena, p. 565, 
and No. 900 in Scrivener's Introduction, vol. i, p. 276. It is assigned 
to the eleventh or twelfth century, is written on fine vellum 3H>x4 inches, 
of 178 leaves, with one column of twenty-five to twenty-eight lines to 
the page; is done in a very fine, neat hand, "with chapter-tables, chapters, 
titles, and metrical verses." Two leaves are evidently by a later hand, 
possibly of the sixteenth century, namely, ff. 163 and 170. The binding 
is very ancient and is in good preservation, being finely tooled and em- 
bellished in gold leaf. The titles and illuminations at the beginning of 
each Gospel are in elaborate Byzantine designs of blue and gold. That of 
St. Luke, which is given in the facsimile, contains the text of the first 
seven verses of that Gospel enlarged about one half. 

Plate XIII. Drew Minuscule IV 

This is a minuscule of the Gospels, Manuscript IV of the Drew Sem- 
inary Collection and No. 1275 in Gregory, Prolegomena, p. 1309. Dr. 
Gregory classes it in the eleventh century. It is done on very fine, 
thin vellum, with exceeding care and neatness. Besides chapter head- 
ings and titles it contains the Ammonian Sections and Eusebian Canons. 
There are thirty-nine leaves, 83^x63^8 inches in dimensions, with one col- 
umn of nineteen lines to the page. It is only a fragment of the original 
document, containing portions of Luke xxi, xxii, xxiii, and xxiv, and 
John ii-viii. The facsimile contains John iv, 5-9, from folio 17, recto. 

Plate XIV. Drew Minuscule V 

Another minuscule fragment of the Gospels, Manuscript V of the 
Drew Collection, and No. 1276 in Gregory, Prolegomena, p. 1309. Of 
the same century as the preceding, it is done in similar style and on 
the same fine quality of vellum of the same-sized page, with single col- 
umn of twenty-four lines. The ornamentation and use of silver in the 
lettering, together with the extreme elegance of the workmanship and 
character of its readings, make this codex exceptionally interesting. 
Though incomplete, it contains most of the Gospel of Mark and nearly 
twenty-one chapters of Luke. We have, in the plate, the heading and 
first seven verses of Luke. 

Plate XV. Drew Minuscule VI 

Drew Manuscript VI is another large Lectionary of the Gospels, cited 
as No. 951 by Dr. Gregory, Prolegomena, p. 1313, and classed as from 
the twelfth or possibly the eleventh century. It contains 247 leaves 
of parchment, 123^x9^ inches, with two columns of twenty-seven lines 



126 THE CANON. TEXT, AND MANUSCRIPTS 

to the page. Though it has had severe usage, its original rank must 
have been high, judging from the character and quality of the work- 
manship. Like Manuscript II, it is furnished with musical notation in 
red. The specimen page is the beginning of the lection for Whitmonday 
beginning the series of lessons from Matthew following Pentecost, and is 
taken in accordance with the Synaxarion of the Greek Church from 
Matt, xviii, 10-17. 

Plate XVI. Drew Minuscule VII 

This is Manuscript VII of the Drew Collection, and No. 952 in Dr. 
Gregory's list of Gospel Lectionaries or Evangelisteria; see Prolegomena, 
p. 1313. It consists of 175 large nearly square leaves on medium quality 
parchment, 8 3^x9 % inches in dimensions, with two columns of twenty- 
six lines to the page. One entire quire, A, is lost, but the last quire 
remains and gives the date as 1148. The musical notation is neatly 
inserted, as are also the headings for the reading lessons, but in the 
page given in the plate the scribe inserted the name of the wrong 
Gospel, that of Mark, for his lection for the third day of Holy Week, 
the passage actually copied being from Matt, xxiv, 36-46, as it should 
be for the liturgy of that day. 

Plate XVII. Drew Minuscule IX 

Manuscript IX of the Drew Lectionaries is in some respect the most 
complete in the collection. It consists of 334 leaves of beautiful vellum, 
9x1 1% inches in size, and, with the exception of two initial and highly 
illuminated folios of a single broad column of text, is written in two 
columns of nineteen lines to the page. It is done in brilliant inks, with 
red musical notes, while the words of our Lord and the initial folios 
mentioned above are done in gold, making nearly one half of the work 
in gold script. 

There are two full-page illustrations, one of St. John and the other 
of St. Luke (see page 57) ; while the portraits of the other two evan- 
gelists have been clumsily cut out, together with three leaves of the 
text. It is strongly bound, in very ancient if not the original form, 
with green velvet on thick wooden boards, a remnant only remaining 
of the rich fastenings which formerly held it on its three open sides. 
The page of text in the plate is folio 45, verso, and contains John ix, 
23-29. 



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